Western Front - 2009 May 15

              WESTERN'S CYCLING
TEAM RANKED 2ND
AFTER COMPETING IN
NATIONALS
PAGE 13
BRUCE
SPEAKS AT
BUDGET
FORUM
PAGE 2
LECTURER'S SHARE
NEW TECHNIQUES IN
TRADITIONAL NATIVE
AMERICAN ART
PAGE 9
Friday, May 15, 2009
AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING WESTERN-WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SINCE 1970 I W E S T E R N F R 0 N T 0 N L I N E . N ET
No capital funds for Waterfront
photo by Katie Greene THE WESTERN FRONT
Western Planning Consultant Doug Graham speaks in front of photos from around the world at the waterfront forum Wednesday. Graham
said the photos represented different aspects for key waterfront issues and were meant to provoke a reaction.
Development plans to extend Western's campus still moving forward
Kevin Minnick
THE WESTERN FRONT
Western will receive none of the $6.75
million it had requested for waterfront
land acquisition and facility development
from the 2009-11 bieiinium capital budget
due to the ongoing economic crisis.
Despite the complete lack of funding,
Western has continued to move forward
with its waterfront development plan­ning
process, hosting a public "Charac­ter
Study" forum on Tuesday, May 12,
to seek, reaction on possible ideas for the
waterfront layout.
Steve Swan, vice president for uni­versity
relations, said while this process is
taking place during bad economic times,
the situation is not entirely negative.
"If anything, [lack of funding] has al­lowed
us to apply even more scholarship
to a project that we would not have if the
money was available right now," Swan
said.
Western planning consultant Doug­las
Graham said at the forum Tuesday
that Western's Waterfront Committee and
the Waterfront Futures Group, as well as
several other consultants, conducted a
"character study" in order to get an idea
for what themes and ideas the public and
student body wanted to see on the new
satellite campus.
The various consultants presented
a series of sketches of possible water­front
scenes at the character study forum
to gauge interest in what the university
will request to developers when the time
comes to begin contracting.
see WATERFRONT page 5
Fairhaven affirms faculty is a priority
Coral Garnick
THE WESTERN FRONT
Fairhaven College is known for its
unique interdisciplinary studies, student-designed
programs, and for being one of
the smallest colleges on Western's cam­pus.
The college decided to cut its operat­ing
budget by 52.2 percent in response to
President Bruce Shepard's request for all
colleges to propose a budget strategy for
both a 3.8 percent and a 5 percent cut to
base budgets.
With the help of faculty, staff and
students in Fairhaven, Fairhaven Dean
Roger Gilman proposed the 52.2 per­cent
cut; to the college's operating budget
rather than cut faculty, programs or fund
balances like some of the other colleges.
Faculty preservation was a priority for
Fairhaven, Gilman said. This cut will re­duce.
Fairhaven's operating budget from
$44,081 to $20,952.
"We took a big hit to our operating
budget, but we wanted to put as much of
our resources into direct contact with stu­dents
and help them have as many classes
as possible," Gilman said.
Although preserving faculty was
Fairhaven's main priority, one full-time
equivalent (FTE) faculty out of 19, and
one FTE part-time faculty out of four,
were cut from Fairhaven's base budget,
Gilman said. However, the one FTE posi­tion
left voluntarily.
Assistant professor Raquel Montoya-
Lewis was offered the chief judge position
for the Lummi Nation Court, so she asked
to reduce her position to a half-tenure-track
position. Additionally, Professor
Jungsik Kim took a position teaching at
a university in Korea, and his tenure posi­tion
was also reduced to half. Those re­ductions
equal the one FTE position cut
proposed on Fairhaven's budget, Gilman
said.
see FAIRHAVEN page 3
Western works
to keep asbestos
under control
Elysia Nazareth
THE WESTERN FRONT
Despite Western's continual construc­tion,
asbestos still remains in every resi­dence
hall on campus, with the exception
of Edens, Ridgeway Highland, Sigma and
Omega.
Gayle Shipley, Western's environ­mental
health and safety director, said
most of the asbestos is located behind
walls or in pipe chases.
"This is a common condition for
buildings built in the mid-twentieth Cen­tury.
We have asbestos present in our
residence halls and academic buildings,"
Shipley said^ "Western strictly follows
/safety guidelines^regarding asbestos oh;
campus. The safety and health of our stu­dents
is our top priority:"
Asbestos is a naturally occurring, fi-_
brbus silicate mineral that is most com-'
monly used for its useful properties such
as thermal insulation, chemical and ther­mal
stability, and high tensile strength.
However, according to the Environ­mental
Protection Agency (EPA), expo­sure
to airborne friable (crumbly) asbes­tos
can pose potential health risks because
if people breathe in the contaminated air,
they may inhale asbestos fibers.
The EPA said until airborne, con­cealed
asbestos is not known to have
negative health effects, but continued ex­posure
is said to increase the amount of
see ASBESTOS page 7.
In Ridgeway Kappa residence halls, red dots
are place on lights to help students identify
which ones contain asbestos. In these cases
only maintenance can change them.