Western Front - 1982 May 28

              Low tax revenues blamed*
Western slaps freeze on hiring
By DAVE MASON
In another attempt to come to
grips with budget slashes, Western
administrators this week slapped a
hiring freeze on all job vacancies
that have occurred since last
Sunday.
The move, which has gained
grudging acceptance from most
faculty, was triggered by a predic­ted
decrease in sales-tax revenues,
Executive Vice President James
Talbot said this week.
He added that he will receive by
June 30 figures on sales-tax reve­nues
from the state Office of Fin­ancial
Management that will deter­mine
the fate of the hiring freeze.
The freeze could thaw when the
OFM's report lands on Talbot's
desk, he said, depending on
whether the report is gloomy or
optimistic.
Officially, however, no date has
been set for stopping the freeze.
"It's over when we say it's over,"
Talbot explained.
A decrease in revenue has not
been announced officially, Talbot
said. But Phil Rockefeller, the gov­ernor's
assistant for higher educa­tion,
warned the Council for Post-secondary
Education May 17 of a
likely decrease in money from the
sales tax.
By not filling recent vacancies,
Talbot said he hopes to avoid a
major budget crisis later. The
freeze provides "breathing space"
should the Legislature make
another slice in the university bud­get,
he said.
Sales-tax revenues are a major
source of university funding. The
(continued on page 2)
Western Front
WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY VOL 74, NO. 35 FRIDAY, MAY 28, 1982
Faculty group
pushes ahead
with club plan
o
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ S S * H : : ; S S :
Faculty club organizer Gerard Rutan of political science
explains the benefits of having a private lounge on campus.
By LESLIE NICHOLS
and LLOYD PRITCHETT
Despite opposition from a num­ber
of sources, about 50 Western
faculty members voted this week to
push ahead with a plan to turn
Canada House into a private
faculty club this fall.
The vote, which asks University
President Paul Olscamp to seek
approval for the exclusive club
from Western's Board of Trustees,
took place at an informal meeting
Wednesday. The meeting, billed as
a "historic" event by club organ­izers,
served primarily as a forum
for prospective club members to
learn more about how the club
would function.
If approved, the faculty club
would displace two academic pro­grams
currently housed at Canada
House, including the internation-
Cutbacks trim summer classes
By JEFF KRAMER
Approximately ftO'Cpur^es-Jisted. irtihersummer
catalogue are not being offered because of a 20 percent
funding cutback.
Mary Robinson, director of summer session, said
course listings were tentative and subject to action by
Olympia.
"Everytime we turned around, there was an act by
the Legislature or the governor proposing cuts
against us," Robinson said.
Nevertheless, she said she still is hopeful the
summer session will be successful, and stressed that
the cuts, distributed among all but a few departments,
will not seriously affect most students.
"We're hopeful our enrollment will continue to
increase as it has every year," Robinson said.
Last year, a record 4,000 students attended summer
classes at Western. At least half of them, Robinson
said, were year-round Western students.
Some summer faculty, however, will be denied an
opportunity to teach in the upcoming quarter because
of the fiscal bind.
1 Robinson &^^
ent of 163 full-time positions last summer, a figure
reduced by 22 for this term.
The process of choosing which instructors to omit
was undertaken by separate departments in coordina­tion
with their deans.
Robinson said class eliminations were made with
regard to student need and previous enrollment
figures.
She added, however, that an effort was made to
retain as many education classes as possible, because a
considerable portion of summer quarter students are
prospective or current teachers.
Robinson said she also is expecting high enrollment
of Canadian and graduate students. During summer
quarter out-of-state students pay In-state tuition fees.
Students who do not register this week still are free to
do so on June 22. Summer session begins the follow­ing
day, with the six-week session ending July 30 and
the nine-week session ending August 20. Mary Robinson
ally renowned Center for Canad­ian-
American Studies.
Meanwhile, Olscamp, who at­tended
the 45-minute meeting,
confirmed that blueprints for the
private club were financed from a
fund supported by state tax dollars
and state tuition money.
Olscamp also said he saw no rea­son
why state taxes could not be
used to pay a portion of the
$60,000 required to renovate Can­ada
House for the club, adding
that such an expenditure would be
within the law. The remainder
would be financed by club dues,
Olscamp said.
Although club organizers said
they had contacted Canadian-
American Studies about relocating
the center last week, Associate
Director Don Alper said after the
meeting he still had received no
official notification that the pro­gram
would have to move.
"We found out about (the club)
the way the rest of the faculty did
— through that memo that was cir­culated,"
he said.
Eugene Hogan of the political
""*?ciln€£d'epartrnfcnf also attended
the meeting and spoke out against
the club's hasty method of locating
an appropriate facility.
Hogan said he was "appalled" at
the manner in which the club ap­proached
the proposal, a method
he said led to a "bad, immediate
response in the. press."
"More talk has to be had and
fears allayed," he said, adding that
the effort designed to unite faculty
is "getting off to a bad start."
Alper echoed Hogan's views,
saying "virtually no discussion has
occurred" between club organizers
and Canada House.
"The whole thing has been
handled in a shabby way," he said
(continued on page 2)
Further cuts portend pulled programs
By LORI McGRIFF
Academic programs will be
chopped out of Western's academ­ic
menu if the Legislature serves up
another round of budget reduc­tions,
top Western administrators
said last week.
Yet the shaky nature of Wash­ington
state's economic condition
makes planning for budgetary dis­aster
difficult, Executive Vice Pres­ident
James Talbot said.
Rampant uncertainty over
Western's future causes extreme
anxiety, Talbot acknowledged,
adding administrators have attempt­ed
to defuse tension by squelching
cutback-related rumors and assur­ing
the college community that no
program hit lists exist.
In the meantime, Talbot said,
Western is planning the best it can
to cope with funding cuts.
If the cut occurs, the plug could
be pulled on some programs, al­though
no list of priorities has been
prepared, Talbot said.
Unlike the last cut, which was
across-the-board and severed $6
million dollars from Western's
budget, future cuts probably will
rely on elimination of some pro­grams,
cuts in others and consoli­dation
of programs, Talbot said.
He said the way the last budget-tightening
was accomplished, quali­ty
of education at Western suf­fered.
By evenly spreading the re­ductions,
an overall erosion of
quality occurred, Talbot said in an
April 23 memo to the University
Planning Council.
In the memo, he suggested alter­natives
for future cuts and pre­dicted
possible reductions.
"In the span of a few years West­ern
may eliminate 60 faculty posi­tions
out of 475, which is about a
12.5 percent reduction," Talbot
stated in his memo.
During the last round of cuts, 30
non-tenured faculty and 82 staff
positions were eliminated. The
faculty cuts take effect next year,
Talbot said, adding that because
the cuts were made only in non-tenured
faculty, some departments
suffered more than they should
have, such as the psychology de­partment.
Smaller departments in the Col­lege
of Arts and Sciences and de­partments
with a high number of
non-tenured faculty suffered the
most he said.
The College of Business and
Economics only had half a full-time
faculty position eliminated
because of its high enrollment.
Also, the College of Fine and Per­forming
Arts had 2l/i positions cut,
Huxley College had a half cut and
Fairhaven College had one posi­tion
cut.
Meanwhile, the hardest-hit area
in the university was the School of
Education, with 8'/2 cuts out of a
total full-time equivalent staff of
53'/2.
The remainder of the cuts were
in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Departments hit hardest in the col­lege
because of the non-tenured
faculty cuts were anthropology,
home economics and other small
programs, Talbot said.
James Davis, dean of the Col­lege
of Arts and Sciences, said he
(continued on page 15)
Crowds roar at
'Greasepaint'
•page 10
Western's lot:
Tickets, towing
—page 8