Western Front - 1982 April 2

              Rude Bowling Green welcome
Olscamp rejection urged
© copyright 1982*by The Western
Front
By MARK CARLSON
and LLOYD PRITCHETT
The recent appointment of Uni­versity
President Paul Olscamp to
the top post at Bowling Green
State University in Ohio has drawn
howls of outrage from members of
the BGSU community, who had
their hopes pinned on the selection
of favorite-son candidate Michael
Ferrari, the university's vice
president.
Negative reaction from the
close-knit campus community
prompted an editorial in the local
newspaper calling for BGSU
board members to replace Ols­camp
with Ferrari, who has served
as university vice president for
more than 10 years.
The debonaire Ferrari was con­sidered
by many to be a shoo-in for
the presidency, sources close to the
university said.
Feelings of "shock and disbelief
at Olscamp's selection as BGSU
president reportedly extend to fa­culty,
students and staff at the uni­versity,
as well as to business lead­ers
in the small Ohio community,
located 20 miles from Lake Erie.
In an emotion-charged front
page editorial in the local paper,
the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tri­bune,
Editor David Miller wrote
that the selection of someone other
RovShapley
than Ferrari was "inconceivable."
Ferrari, who has served as
BGSU's acting president following
the death of former President Hol-lis
A. Moore, is a very popular fig­ure
on campus and in the com­munity.
The editorial accused BGSU's
nine-member Board of Trustees of
being "out of touch with the feel­ings
of the university," and called
on board members to reconsider
their decision to hire Olscamp.
In addition, the paper endorsed
efforts by prominent Bowling
Green businessmen who recently
launched a letter-writing campaign
to board members. The business­men
are urging trustees to replace
Olscamp with Ferrari when the
board meets April 9 to officially
vote on filling the top slot at BGSU.
The Sentinel-Tribune editorial
charged the university's "absentee
landlord" trustees with taking their
previous vote in a closed meeting.
According to the paper, voting on
the position in closed session vio­lated
Ohio's open meetings law.
The paper stated that Ferrari
supporters "are not anti-anyone
else." But it added that backers of
Ferrari "have yet to hear any good
reason" why he was not selected.
Asked about his reaction to the
uproar, Olscamp said he would
have "no comment, except to say
(continued on page 8)
VOL 74, NO. 19 WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY APRIL 2, 1982^
Search committee
slammed by Sobel
Paul Olscamp
By MARK CARLSON
Members of a committee that
will scan the nation for a successor
to lame-duck University President
Paul Olscamp are expected to be
announced later this month, said
Curtis Dalrymple, chairman of
Western's Board of Trustees.
But already the composition of
the Presidential Search Committee
has come under attack by student
leaders. The major complaint is the
search committee does not have
enough student representation.
Meanwhile, Executive Vice
President James Talbot, who will
serve as interim president follow­ing
Olscamp's July 31 departure
for Bowling Green State Univer­sity
in Ohio, has announced he
probably will not seek the top spot.
According to a memo circulat­ing
among Western professors
from Faculty Senate President Al
Froderberg, Talbot "feels it is
unlikely that he will be a candidate
for the Presidency of WWU."
Western has begun its search for
a new chief executive by dispatch­ing
letters to universities all over
the nation that are "comparable in
size to us," trustee Gordon Sandi-son
said. The university also has
placed an advertisement in The
Chronicle of Higher Education, a
weekly newspaper that is the bible
of college administrators.
An April 12 deadline has been
slated for appointments to the 12-
member search committee, which
Sandison will chair. The group will
feature the five trustees and three
faculty members appointed by the
Faculty Senate.
In addition, one student
member will be picked by the Asso­ciated
Students Board of Direc­tors,
one administrator will be
chosen by the Administrators
Association and one classified staff
employee will be selected by the
j (continued on page 8)
Hefty 9.6% higher ed cut 'no bluff
By MICK BOROUGHS
April Fool's Day began with the expected
7.8 percent across-board cut by Gov. John
Spellman, in what one of his aides called "a
no joke, no bluff move" to grasp a balanced
state budget.
In the 21 day of the special session, Spel­lman,
under the provisions of the Budget
and Accounting Act, ordered the cuts to all
state agencies including the state's higher
education institutions
"It's not a bluff at all, it's a state law," Phil
Rockefeller, Spellman's assistant for educa­tion,
said Wednesday.
Rockefeller explained that cuts in educa­tion
would loom closer to 10 percent because
budgets and finances in K-12 and higher
education have been committed in personnel
contracts and expenditure cuts could only
come from personnel cuts.
Those cuts would be implemented after a
12 month contract period. In one year, those
same cuts will have inflated to 9.6 percent.
James Talbot, Western's executive vice
president, said Wednesday that Spellman
had no choice but to make the cut, however
he added that such a budget reduction could
slice another 600 students from the univer­sity
rosters.
"I don't know how we could reduce to that
number," Talbot said. "We have already
admitted 80 percent of the incoming fresh­man
and 60 percent of the total number of
incoming students/ Incoming students make
up about one-third of the total student
population."
Western could not be cut any further Tal­bot
said, and added that with Western
already becoming a smaller institution, he
could-not imagine any programs or depart­ments
cut any more.
Talbot agreed with Rockefeller, that he
did not believe the budget-cutting threat by
Spellman was a political bluff to force the
Legislature into an agreement.
"Time is getting short and a responsible
governor has to start preparing cuts. I just
wish he didn't have to be so responsible,"
Talbot remarked.
The quest for compromise between the
House and the Senate has hall marked this
special session.
A House and Senate conference commit­tee
has agreed on a $ 151 million in cuts. This
agreement was decided on after a legislative
tug-of-war. The House had asked for $265
million in cuts while the Senate request­ed
some $106 million in further reductions.
From that $151 million earmarked for
slashing, $20.4 million is slated to be cut
from the state's four-year universities and
colleges and from the community college
system.
That $20.4 million also had to be reached
through legislative compromise.
Spellman has given agency heads until
April 16 to send to his office a plan outlining
areas marked for further reductions.
"The governor doesn't want it (the cuts) to
be traumatic. He wants the agency directors
to make .the cuts as smoothly as they can,"
said Paul O'Conner, Spellman's press secret­ary.
However the cuts will not go into effect if
an acceptable tax package can be reached
before the end of the special session in a
week. The House is still debating an addition­al-
tax plan that passed the Senate Wednes­day
evening.
But the House is gearing for a long wee­kend
of debates and compromise with the
hope that it might produce some results, said
Donna Rideout, assistant to House Speaker
Bill Polk, yesterday.
"We were told to expect to work through
the weekend to get this thing done and the
Speaker is confident that it can be done."
Inside:
Student aid
funds upped
—page 3
Buyers pick
punk, funk
—page 11