Western Front - 1989 February 28

              TUESDAY
WEATHER: Increasing
chance of rain today. Con­tinued
cloudy through the
week.
PLAYOFF TICKETS: Basketball tick­ets
on sale starting noon today in the
Carver Gym athletic office, $2 stu­dents,
$4 general admission.
• • S P E C I A L SECTION • • •
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WH^t^UtUBil^S^Bl^^^^^
The Western Front
Report calls
for younger
English profs
By Tim Cappoen
staff reporter
While Western's English department has proven its
commitment to teaching and high scholarship, it can be
improved by hiring new, younger staff and reducing
faculty workloads, according to a recent survey and
review.
Phyllis Franklin of the Modern Language Association
and Charles B. Harris of Illinois State University visited
Western on Dec. 1 and 2 to evaluate the department's
staffing arrangements and curriculum.
The review was part of a periodic evaluation that all
university departments must complete.
After reviewing the department's programs, the de­partment's
self-study report and speaking to students and
faculty, they submitted a report of their survey on the
English department.
Their review offered several suggestions on how to
improve the department, including:
• Provide more staff, including younger staff mem­bers.
Currently, the department is severely understaffed,
with 23 full-time professors, associate professors and
lecturers.
According to the self-study report, the last entry-level
assistant professor was appointed sixteen years ago. Eighty
percent of the current department members are 55 years or
older and almost half (45 percent) are more than 60.
"We definitely need new blood in here, mostly for the
students' sake," said Paul Lindholdt, English professor.
"We need people who can teach energetically."
• Reduce faculty workloads. As aresultof the frequent
scheduling of five-credit courses, faculty members often
teach 13 hours or more in a quarter. The Association of
Departments of English guidelines for undergraduate
faculty members recommend no more than 12 instruc­tional
hours per week. Graduate faculty teaching loads
also are excessive, routinely exceeding the nine hours a
week the association reccomends.
• Reduce the department's excessive reliance on part-time
and temporary faculty members to staff introductory
writing courses. According to the report, the support
services for these faculty members are inadequate, in­cluding
low pay, limited access to office supplies and use.
They also are denied departmental voting rights and are
frequently appointed at the last minute.
• The survey found little evidence of long-range
curricular planning and recommends the department
establish a plan and implement a master schedule that
will ensure student access to a weli-sequenced program
See English on page 2
Scholarships
on Increase
for minorities
By Paul Mahlum
staff reporter
During the past five years, West­ern
has experienced a dramatic in­crease
in the number of student schol­arships
offered and in the number of
recipients, including minorities.
According to a Student Financial
Resources survey, there has been a
69-percent increase in the number of
institutional scholarship recipients
and a 55-percent increase in the number
of private donor recipients since 1984.
Translated into dollars, Western has
spent during that time a total of
$425,188 in institutional and $342,427
in private donor scholarships.
In the late 1960s, when Western
offered only four or five scholar­ships,
many donors believed the federal
government alone could provide
financial assistance to students.
As rising college tuition costs
are making it tougher for students to
pay for school, donors have become
more sensitive to student needs.
Donors have become more sen­sitive
in providing minority scholar­ships.
Student Financial Resources
Director Ronald Martinez said, "there
has been significant growth in West­ern's
minority scholarship program.
We are probably seeing higher-cali­ber
students coming here now. Busi­nesses
are realizing they can make a
difference.
"Western has the poorest record
among state public higher education
institutions in educating minorities,"
he said.
For 20 years, Western offered
only the Garfield High School Schol­arship.
Presented to an entering fresh­man
minority from Garfield, Fran­klin,
Cleveland or Rainier Beach high
schools, the scholarship covers $500
of the student's yearly costs.
In 1987, Western began the
Minority Achievement Program
Scholarship (MAP). Consisting of
44 $ 1,000 scholarships, the program
is open to entering freshman and
See Finance on page 3
Student gets cafeterias to switch tuna
By Ellis Baker
staff reporter
Western's cafeterias are now serving tongul
tuna instead of the usual yellowfin tuna be­cause
of one student's concern over the extinc­tion
of dolphins.
The request follows a national boycott of
yellowfin tuna because commercial tuna-fish­ing
methods in tropical zones of the Pacific
Ocean kill as many as 115,000 dolphins a year,
said senior Cortlandt Fletcher of Bellingham,
an environmental education major.
"It's the largest slaughter of marine mam­mals
in history, even greater than whales,
estimated between six-to-eight million dol­phins
(killed) in the past 20 years.
"It's one of those situations where people
become aware, they become educated, and
they take action. They don't buy yellowfin
tuna," Fletcher, director of the Regenerative
Society, said.
Fletcher contacted Mike Lee, director of
food services, Feb. 7, to present information
about the boycott.
A week later, Lee directed food services
employees to avoid yellowfin when ordering
the approximately 15 cases of tuna consumed
at Western each week, he said.
Customer demand is a motivating factor,
Lee said.
"Number one, making this change, price-wise
and quality-wise, is not going to make a
lot of difference. Most of the customers proba­bly
wouldn't notice the difference. The second
thing is it's being done by us, here, at Western
Washington University," Lee said.
If tongul tuna had been more expensive, it
would've been difficult to switch, Lee said.
The Regenerative Society, an AS club, is
one of many organizations advocating the
yellowfin boycott, Fletcher said. Internation­ally,
Sea Shepard, Green Peace and Earth Is­land
are participating.
"We need as many people to get involved
as we can right now. It's either going to be
brought to an end within the next five years or
three species of dolphins will be extinct,"
Fletcher said.
In tropical areas of the Pacific ocean, pods
of dolphins frequently swim over schools of
yellowfin tuna. Commercial fishermen seek
the pods and circle the area with their purse-seine
nets, catching dolphins with the tuna,
Fletcher said.
See Tuna on page 3