Western Front - 1998 October 16

              WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16,1998
VOLUME 106 ISSUE 6
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BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON
Students get a taste of the third world
By Alyssa Pfau
The Western Front
For just a few hours, a group of
Western students got a glimpse of
what living in a third-world coun­try
is like.
Many of the 43 participants at
Thursday night's hunger dinner
in the Shalom Center said they
experienced awareness for those
less fortunate.
"I have always realized there
were a lot of people less fortunate
than me, but I never realized how
many/' Western student Katie
Cox said.
The event celebrated World
Food Day and focused specifical­ly
on world hunger, highlighting
the small population of the world,
15 percent, that.has more than
enough to eat and the large popu­lation,
about 50 percent, that is
nearly starving.
As the students walked in the
door, they were given a slip of
paper that separated them into
one of three categories: upper,
middle or lower class.
At least half of the participants
were placed in the lower class.
They sat on the floor and were
given a small plate of rice and a
glass of water. The meal repre­sented
the only food people of the
lower class get in a single day.
"We are so used to the routine
of having three meals a day that it
is easy to ignore the fact that such
a large percentage of the popula­tion
is lucky to get one meal of
rice a day" Western student Sara
Hill said. She added that this is
just one hour out of one day; peo­ple
in third-world countries are
doing this day in and day out.
The group representing the
Front/Tyler Watson
(Top) Students at last night's dinner eat a lower-class meal of
rice and water. (Right) Western student Sara Hill pointed out
that people in third world countries are undernourished daily.
... enough to make most people
fat," Foisy said.
middle class — about 35 percent
of the world's population — was
given beans, rice, tortillas and
pop. The upper class was served a
full-course meal, including a
, salad, orange juice, an entree and
dessert.
"From time to time, on an occa­sion
like this, we stop and look at
conditions that other people are in
— conditions and circumstances
that are not always pleasant to
look at," said featured speaker
Maurice Foisy, a Western political
science professor.
Foisy said it is easy to turn
away from problems such as
poverty and world hunger.
Throughout his speech, he quoted
a book entitled "World Hunger:
Twelve Myths" by Frances Moore
Lappe. The book is based on the
theory that "hunger is not a myth,
but the myths keep us from end­ing
it," Foisy said.
One of the most common
myths, he said, is that there is not
enough food to go around.
"Enough food is available to
provide at least 4.3 pounds of
food per person a day world wide
Yet 800 million people do not
have enough to eat, and hunger
kills 12 million children each year,
he said.
Thirty percent of the children in
the Bellingham School District
qualify for free lunch because
they are near or below the pover­ty
line, Foisy said.
So with ample food produced
to feed the world, Foisy asked,
"why are people hungry?"
Distribution is. the problem,
Foisy said; in the current market­place,
food does not get to some
people because either their coun­tries
don't have an effective
demand or the individual doesn't
have enough money..
On a national level, hunger has
increased in recent years more
than anything else because of cuts
of almost $400 million in the food-stamp
program, cuts in earned-income
tax credits, corporate
downsizing and globalism of the
economy, Foisy said.
Western's use of non-tenured faculty increases
By Jenni Odekirk
The Western Front
Political science professor Butch
Kamena teaches two classes this fall at
Western, but his job is not guaranteed in
the future because he does not have
tenure. More than one out of four profes­sors
at Western shares Kamena's uncer­tain
job security.
Last fall, 161 out of 594, or 28 percent,
of Western's faculty did not have tenure.
The number of non-tenured faculty
teaching at Western this fall has not been
Front/Arvid Hokanson
Western professor Butch Kamena shares an office with other adjunct faculty.
determined yet, but Director of
Institutional Research Ernest Sams said
he did not expect a drastic change from
last year. The number of non-tenured fac­ulty
at Western has steadily increased
nearly 1 percent each year since 1990.
By comparison, 43 percent of college
professors across the nation do not have
tenure, according to the American
Association of University Professors' web
site, and 49 percent of the faculty at the
University of Washington does not have
tenure.
Tenured professors are guaranteed
their positions until they choose to move
to a different college or retire, and tenure-track
employees are hired with the expec­tation
that they will gain tenure after a
trial period. Non-tenured faculty must
renew their contracts every year or every
quarter.
Two types of non-tenured employees
work at Western. Part-time faculty are
either contracted for a quarter or for a
year and typically teach less than three
classes.
They are eligible for benefits the sec­ond
consecutive quarter they teach at
Western.
Full-time, limited-term faculty are con­tracted
for a year but teach the same
number of classes as tenured professors,
typically three.
A limited-term professor who works
more than six consecutive years must be
given tenure.
"Permanent faculty are a benefit to stu­dents,"
Dean of the College of Arts and
Sciences Peter Elich said. "They are avail­able
for advisement, consult and partici­pate
in curriculum development and
have a full-time commitment to the insti­tution
and to students."
Elich said the ideal percentage of non-tenured
faculty at Western would be 10 to
15 percent. This is because most non-tenured
faculty are used to fill in for pro­fessors
on leave and to teach extra class
sessions when needed.
Occasionally, part-time instructors are
hired at Western to teach a class or two
about a subject they have special exper­tise
in, Dean of Woodring College of
Education Lawrence Marrs said.
In general, non-tenured faculty spend
more time teaching and less time consult­ing
with students, course planning and
continuing their own education. They
See Faculty, page 3