Western Front - 1980 March 4

              VOL. 72, NO. 15 WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 1980
Housing may boot long-term residents
New students to receive priority over all others
Students who have lived in campus
housing the longest will be the first asked
to leave if applications from new students
for fall quarter fill too many beds, Hous­ing
Director Pete Coy said last week.
Coy said new students, both freshman
and transfer, who apply for. housing be­fore
May 15 will be guaranteed a place to
stay. They will receive priority because
"they don't have access to the community
like returning students do," Office of
Resident Life Director Keith Guy said.
"I think it's a good learning experience
for people to live in the community," Guy
said.-'The people who have been here for
three or four years have had a chance to
get to know the community enough to
find a place to live."
New students are being actively
recruited and enrollment is not limited,
Coy said.
Coy said he thinks the new system is
fairer than the lotteries some schools
have for allotting housing spots because
"people know sooner whether they have
housing or not."
"People on campus know how long
they've been in the dorms, and we can
begin letting them know what kind of
odds they might have," he said.
Part of the reason for the policy
change, Guy said, is that Western's
freshman enrollment dropped by 200 stu­dents
last fall.
The drop might have been caused be­cause
housing rejected 343 formal appli­cants,
and another 412 were offered
space so late they turned it down, mostly
in late August and early September, Coy
said.
Also, about 50 percent more students
wanted to return to the dorms last fall
quarter than in the previous year.
Coy said it would be a mistake to make
an immediate and definite link between
the lack of space in housing and the drop
in freshman enrollment. He said he
wasn't sure if that was the reason for the
KEITH GUY explains housing policy changes (photo by Rick Ross)
policy change, which was a decision of
University President Paul Olscamp. Ols-camp
was unavailable for comment. A
study is being done on the problem. Guy
said.
"I've received several letters from
students saying that it's not exactly fair to
ask people who have been supporting the
system longest — most faithfully — to
leave," Coy said, but quickly added he
wasn't convinced housing was going to
have to ask anyone to leave.
Coy said housing has taken several
steps to expand available living areas.
The first was to forbid fewer than four
persons to each Birnam Wood apart­ment,
a move that met with student
disapproval.
Another possibility is the renovation
of Edens Hall South. Coy said the old
dorm may be renovated if costs are less
than those required to construct a new
building.
Athird possibility, one Coy calls hous­ing's
"safety valve," is leasing new apart­ments
on 21st Street. If more students
apply than could be housed, Guy said
about 140 students could be placed in the
apartments. Coy said it is too early to
predict how many applications will be
received.
—Rudy Yuly
SAC approves night escort service plan
Thanks to the Security Advisory
Committee (SAC) two new programs
will be established at Western. •"
The SAC unanimously approved a
proposal Friday to form a new night
escort service for fall quarter. A motion
was also approved to open the SAC as a
grievance board for the rest of the year.
The escort proposal adopted by SAC
was a result of a task force manned by
members Tim Douglas and Mike Hoefel.
It was established last week to look into
changes for the present escort services.
The proposals now will go to the
Business and Finance Council and then,
if approved, to the Faculty Senate.
Currently, an escort is available to any
female student who calls security request­ing
the service. The student will be
escorted by an available security officer
to any. site on campus.
The program will have a walking
escort leaving every hour from Wilson
Library. One escort will go to the Ridge-way
residence hall complex and another
to the north campus housing.
Students in other parts of the campus
can meet at the library for the escort.
The service is scheduled Sunday
through Thursday nights from 8 a.m.
until the library closes at midnight. Ten­tatively,
the departures for Ridgeway will
be on the hour. The north campus loop
will leave on the half hour.
The escort will be a "carefully selected
student security patrol person"according
to the proposal. He will get $310 a
month, and funds will come from the
consider re-scheduling the shuttle bus to
include a route to apartments on Knox
street, because he said many calls to
security request escort service there.
Chairman Pete Coy said he would
check into re-routing the bus for spring
quarter.
A motion then was madeby committee
member Jim Hildebrand, math profes-
The escort will be a "carefully selected student
security patrol person" according to the
proposal.
Business and Financial Affairs office
either through re-allocation or additional
monies that will be requested for the next
two-year period.
Schedules will be posted in the library,
in the Viking Union exits and in the resi­dence
and dining halls. The Associated
Students will fund all advertising.
Committee member and security
employee Jon Sandberg asked SAC to
sor, to open SAC to hear student com­plaints
about security conduct for the rest
of the year.
He said before a complaint or appeals
board is set up the SAC should know the
"nature and numbers of complaints."
New student SAC member Larry
Blake said he felt students must know
that some action will be taken if they
decided to come forward. He added that
it is important students feel SAC is
neutral and objective.
•Security officers also should be as­sured
that the "investigating body is un­biased,"
said R. G. Peterson, safety and
security director.
Douglas said if SAC hears a legitimate
complaint, "we can make a request on
what actions to take, but we cannot pre­scribe
anything yet."
The SAC action will make no changes
in the current administrative process that
students with grievances must go
through.
Currently, complaints must go from
Peterson to the vice president of business
and financial affairs and then to Univer­sity
President Paul Olscamp..
SAC is discussing forming a grievance
board because Larry Blake appeared
before it in January with several com­plaints
concerning officer's conduct.
AS representative Greg Sobel also
brought some recommendations before
SAC, including more officer visibility
and human relations training for security
officers. These recommendations were
placed on Friday's agenda.
—Sue Mitchell
Power bill savings earmarked for faculty raises
Western has saved $33,000 on its
power bills so far this year because
of warmer-than-usual tempera­tures
and energy conservation
policies implemented last fall.
Heating plant figures show
792,700 therms of natural gas have
been burned this year, 240,900
therms below the budgeted level of
1,034,000. '
Savings have been offset by the
rapidly increasing price of natural
gas imported to the Northwest
from Canada. About 60 percent of
the area's natural gas is imported.
Though Western's electric con­sumption
has been cut as well,
climbing electrical rates have
bitten into the budget causing a
$4,500 deficit resulting in actual
savings of $33,000 in the general
academic budget, Jack Cooley,
Business Manager, said. * "
The $33,000 has been reserved
for pay raises for Western faculty
who also may expect a 1.5 percent
pay increase from the state
legislature.
The energy-saving policies,
which include new water and room
temperature standards coupled
with a new schedule of building
closures, were under review Friday
at the second meeting of the
Energy Conservation Advisory
Committee. University President
Paul Olscamp established the com­mittee
last summer with the dual
purpose of generating funds for the
faculty and conserving energy.
During peak electrical demand
periods, at Puget Power's request,
Western voluntarily cuts-back on
any electrical power use not essen­tial
to the university.
For four days, Jan. 28-31, West­ern
implemented the brownout
with 10, 12, 15 and 11 percent cut­backs
for each day.
Though an apparent success,
people in various campus depart­ments
and dorms were confused
about procedures during the
brownout, said Bob Stewert, a stu­dent
intern who works with the
committee.
In some of the dorms main-breakers
were switched off leaving
large areas without electricity,
Stewert said. Many office workers
didn't know which lights and ap­pliances.
to turn off. •
An educational campaign to
raise energy awareness within the
. Western community through pro­grams,
publications and posters
also was discussed.
—Mike Connors
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