6'- The Michigan Daily - Friday, September 29, 1995 Duderstadt's legacy: Accomplishments, mistakes I t was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Or was it neither? When University President James J. Duderstadt announced yesterday that he will step down in June 1996, he put an endpoint to a mixed bag of accomplish- ntents and mistakes, triumphs and disas- ters. His eight-year tenure as president has been a time of commendable progress in equal opportunity for all individuals on campus. It has also been a time of assault on student rights in the form of restrictive policies and procedures. It has been a time of great financial and technological boom for the University -which has produced mixed results in quality of students' lives. When Duderstadt departs the presidency next June, he will leave behind a Univer- sity that is in many ways better off than when he took office:- and a student body whose environment has changed in other ways for the worse. AN ADVOCATE FOR EQUALITY By far, Duderstadt's greatest accom- plishments have been in the areas of equal- ity for individuals and groups. Two weeks after taking office in 1988, he unveiled the Michigan Mandate, a broad plan for in- creasing minority representation among students and faculty. The Mandate led to greater efforts in recruiting and retaining minority students, as well as strong at- tempts to bring in more professors of color. Seven years after the Mandate's implementation, minority representation has risen from 15.4 percent of the student body-the 1988 figure -to 24.2 percent in the fall of 1994. Clearly, there is still a long way to go, but Duderstadt's vision has been an essential catalyst for progress. That vision has also gone to work on another area of the University population -- gender equity. In April 1994, Duderstadt announced another bold ini- tiative: The Michigan Agenda for Women, which pledged that "by the year 2000, the University of Michigan will become the leader among American universities in promoting the success of women of di- verse backgrounds as faculty, students and staff." The Agenda's plans have re- sulted, so far, in the creation of such programs as the Faculty Women Career Development Fund and the newly ap- proved Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Here, too, progress remains to be made: The 18 months since the Agenda's birth have seen a great many task forces and committees, yet few tan- gible changes. But Duderstadt's efforts have set the stage for more improvement in the future. A third group to benefit from Duderstadt's tenure is the University's gay and lesbian population. In September 1993, at the president's urging, the Uni- versity Board of Regents amended Bylaw 14.06 - the University's non-discrimi- nation statement - to include sexual ori- entation. Following the change, Univer- sity policies were restructured to allow registered same-sex domestic partnerships to receive the same University benefits- including housing, insurance and finan- cial aid - as heterosexual couples do. This change, passed over opposition from several campus groups, was a crucial step for equality and will be one of the best components of Duderstadt's legacy. HEAD OF THE AUTOCRACY For all the positive aspects of Duderstadt's tenure, his time in office has also been a time of repression and exces- sive control over students' lives. He has overseen the creation of numerous poli- cies designed to maintain order on cam- pus that have restricted student freedoms. The first sign of this control came early in the president's term, when he depu- tized officers in the University's Depart- ment of Public Safety and Security (DPS) and announced that he would like to cre- ate a full campus police force. This ambi- tion became reality in 1992, when the EDITORIAL regents transferred control of DPS from the Washtenaw County Sheriffs Depart- ment to their own board. The move came despite the fact that a majority of the student population opposed the change, and took place amid massive student pro- test - signaling a dangerous willingness on Duderstadt's part to ignore student concerns. With Duderstadt's blessing, the Uni- versity has also attempted to co-opt law enforcement in its repeated attempts to shut down Hash Bash, the annual April event that brings hundreds of marijuana smokers to the Diag. Year after year, the University wasted time and money in efforts to keep Hash Bash away - and year after year it lost in court, ending up looking both paternalistic and foolish. Fortunately, this past April Duderstadt came to his senses and allowed Hash Bash to proceed with token opposition - a precedent his successor should uphold. Without a doubt, the worst thing to come out of Duderstadt's term in office is the Statement of Student Rights and Re- sponsibilities. Implemented in January 1993, this code of non-academic conduct includes provisions governing everything from sexual harassment to murder - on campus or within a 30-mile radius of the Diag. While the code purports to uphold a safe and student-friendly University com- munity, in reality it puts accused students through a kangaroo judicial process for actions that - if handled at all -belong only in the U.S. legal system. Duderstadt has sat calmly by as the Division of Stu- dent Affairs has made a mockery of the code, its officers and the students unfortu- nate enough to take the trip though Uni- versity "court." The best thing to be said about the code under Duderstadt's tenure is that it has failed - thus causing the regents to send the Division of Student Affairs back to the drawing board to write a new statement. One can only hope that by the time Duderstadt leaves in June, there will be a new code in place better than the one he saw crash and burn. Duderstadt A LEADER BEYOND THE 'U' As the leader of a university with a reputation transcending Ann Arbor, Duderstadt has crusaded relentlessly to fashion a world-class research institution on the banks of the Huron River - and with much success. Under Duderstadt, the University's research budget has swelled to more than $400 million annu- ally. A nuclear engineer by training, Duderstadt sired the Office of Technol- ogy Transfer, a future-driven division that moves research from the stuffy confines of academia to the marketplace. But Duderstadt's technological vision has sometimes blinded him to undergraduate concerns. Students have complained of large classes and a lack of personal atten- tion - something new computers and an excellent reputation for graduate research cannot remedy. And Duderstadt, who spends time on corporate boards and ad- visory panels, has found less time to listen to students than his predecessors. The president has personally enriched himself through his position on a corporate board - raising concerns about where his pri- orities really lie. As the personification of the Univer- sity of Michigan, Duderstadt has been an effective figurehead - in some areas. Duderstadt's aggressive Campaign for Michigan, a fund-raising drive launched in 1992, brought in more than $1 billion in its first two years alone. Duderstadt and his wife Anne have been visible symbols of the University, regularly attending Michigan football games and hosting din- ner events. Duderstadt ends his speeches with a rousing "Go Blue!" - even his : retirement letter concluded with that phrase. But Duderstadt has been far less effec- tive forging relationships outside the ivory tower. He has largely avoided communi- cation with Michigan legislators, who exert some tug on the University's purse strings. Leaving that job to subordinates has cost the University dearly. Michigan State President M. Peter McPherson nearly managed to bag a significant funding in- crease from the Legislature at the University's expense. And where was Duderstadt? He stepped into the fray at the last minute, validating legislators' concerns that the president only comes to them with a tin cup. Locally, Duderstadt has insulated himself from city affairs, remaining inaccessible even to top city officials. When he does speak oif local issues, Duderstadt lectures officials to appreciate the University's contributions to Ann Arbor and quit complaining about the drawbacks - a position that has won the University few favors from the city. U.. When Duderstadt told a stunned audi- ence yesterday of his retirement, he said the timing owed to the fact that most of his. initiatives are nearly complete. He is only partially correct. Programs such as the Michigan Mandate and the Agenda for Women will require constant vigilance if their progress is to continue. Policies such as the code have historically been tools with which to bludgeon student freedoms- - and an overly ambitious president has the power to do just that. Duderstadt, for all the progress during his eight-year tena ure, often focused so intently on the bal- ance sheet that he neglected student con-, cerns. His legacy will be a University. richer in finance and in diversity, yet-' poorer in what matters most-the quality of students' lives. Ule L9 irbigmi 3uilg JIM LASSER SHARP i . I 420 Maynard Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan MICHAEL ROSENBERG Editor in Chief JULIE BECKER JAMES M. NASH Editorial Page Editors NOTr MY KID~! ME? A DRINKIN6 PRObLEM? -1 1 51 ZE DOE MATTEIR. Unless 'otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of a majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters, and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. Pass the buck Students bear brunt of GOP6'tax' on schools AS TOAST 5N T9 1 , NOTABLE QUOTABLE 'For many years I have given speech after speech on the changes occurring in the world, in higher education, and in our University. In this letter I con- tinue that theme of change. ... It is my Intention to retire from the presidency.' -University President James J Duderstadt n I . MY DIET i s REALL Y-°N1 NOT TOO 01L7 ro 8E YOUR "PRESIDENT,' D~o YOU NEED HEL'P CRtossN, THE STREET? O n Tuesday, crowds of college students packed the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., demanding that Congress reject the Republicans' pro- posed cuts in student aid - and with good reason. Two of the misguided initiatives Congress is considering are plans to "tax" colleges and universities for their use of federal student aid and a plan to limit the federal direct loan program. Both proposals would create new costs for schools - costs that would be passed along to students. Con- gress should reject both of these ideas. Part of the new plan passed by the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee this week would slap a tax on universities that use federal student aid. The fee would be equal to .85 percent of the federal aid #A# # going to students at the institution. This would depart significantly from the usual policy of gov- ernment helping to fund public institutions of higher education: Un- der this plan, Washington would be taking money from colleges and universities. To cover this new cost, schools would either have to cut services or raise tuition. The probable impact would be a combina- tion of these two unsavory scenarios. The current bill contains a clause that would, ostensibly, ban universities from raising tu- tration in 1993, this program allows the gov- ernment to provide student loans directly, instead of contracting out banks to do the lending. This year, 40 percent of new student loans in the United States were handled un- der this program, and all of the University's loans are direct. The program has won praise from administrators in Ann Arbor and else- where because it cuts down on paperwork and, most important, saves schools money by improving efficiency. The Clinton administration has requested that the program be fully implemented by 1998 - meaning that 100 percent of student loans would be direct. Many Republicans, however, have called for its elimination. The current Senate bill calls for direct loans to be cpcapped at 20 percent of all student loans, forcing ' half of all currently par- ticipating schools out of the program. The proposals for cut- ting the direct student loan program are an- other example of Republican reductions that would hurt students indirectly. By harming colleges and universities, these proposals would do two things: First, they would hurt the students at the institutions by forcing schools to choose between cuts in services and higher tuition - thus becoming attacks on students as well as their schools; second, BRENT MclNrosH MCINTOSH CLASSICS Admisions tests: Watyou were always afraid to ask i i he Law School Admissions Test World Tour 1995 makes a stop in Ann Arbor tomorrow, and I - fortunately or unfortu- nately - will be among its worshipful fol- lowers. This is no small source of concern for me and a few hundred others. True, the LSAT is no MCAT: Aspiring shysters aren't required to spend a full day being interrogated on the vagaries of chemical interactions. In fact, we may get to see the second half of Michigan's clash with that traditional grid- iron power, Miami (Ohio). We should get to the game just as Brian Griese throws his seventh touchdown pass to make the score 73-13. The suspense is almost unbearable. Seriously though, what's the point of all these admissions tests? Mental agility is not something that manifests itself in under- graduate classes, then disappears in law school. It seems to me that the GRE, MCAT, LSAT, GMAT and URFAT are a bit super- fluous. (Disclaimer: The University Law School With that in mind, I thought it would be entertaining to take a look at the admissions tests for professions other than law, medi- cine, business and academia. For example, the U.S. Postal Service application examination: Most of the test deals with proper maintenance for pistols and effective assault techniques. In this case, jobs go to those with the lowest scores. That was not always so, unfortunately. Then there's the test given to potential Michigan coaches. Overall, a rather ordi- nary exam, mostly common sense stuff: stan- dard operating procedure, coaching ethics, player salary scales and the like. Hidden, though, on page 17, is this sur- prise query: "84.) When arrested, what is the proper response following the reading of your Miranda rights? "a.) 'If Jimmy and Ray can do it, why can't 1?' "b.) 'Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before. Just slap the cuffs on, Eddie.' "c.) 'Oh, come on, since when was uri- with this question: "23.) Spell your name, but do NOT copy it from the top of the page. That is cheating." Back on campus, there is - believe it or not -a Diag speaker admission test. Poten- tial preachers must find the answer to this difficult query: "47.) As a Diag speaker, I despise (a) Jews, (b) Republicans,(c) gays and lesbians, (d) people with earrings or (e) anyone who is, not like myself, especially all of the above, and especiallygay, Jewish Republicans with multiple piercings." Those who haven't taken part in the whole Greek-rush frenzy may not realize this, but even that seemingly friendly ritual requires an entrance exam. This is some- what secret, so don't tell anyone. A copy of the fraternity admission exam, removed by a brave informer from a Drinka Kegga Brew winter 1995 rushparty, includes the following: "91.) Exceptional chick magnets include (a) Jeep Cherokees, (b) 'studying' loudly in the UGLi, while really scoping chicks, (c) dogs on the Diag, (d) vanity plates on your I...