The Towerlight, December 4, 1986

tl19861204-000 "Inside Power & Elegance The creation of a calendar featuring Towson State Uni-versity women page 6 The Towerlight4?1 Published weekly by the students of Towson State University Towson, MD 21204 Index news classifieds 2 sports 3 4,5 features & entertainment 6,7, 8 visuals 9 editorial 10 perspectives 11 weekwatcher 12 Vol. 80 No. 12 oft. December 4, 1986 photo by Jay Woernit The audience at Monday's University Senate meeting saw the discontinuance of the Instruc-tional Technology program. Senate eliminates ISTC major by Robert M. Graham Netes editor The Towson State University Senate approved Tuesday the dis-continuance to the Department of Instructional Technology as an ad-lninistrative unit because of small number of undergraduate majors and the courses' high cost per credit hour. The 17 existing Instructional Tech- Oology majors will be allowed to continue earning credits towards a degree in the program, but future course offerings will be adminis-tered through the General Educa-tion Department. The Senate, in its fourth regular Meeting of the year, also ap-proved procedures for the joint ap-pointment of faculty members and the inclusion of a conflict of inter-est law in the Faculty Handbook. To offer the present complement of Instructional Technology cour-ses it costs the university between $160 and $198 per credit hour. The cost includes the services of five instructors. ""It's at least twice the cost of any Instructional Technology pro-gram in the state,"" said Dr. Patri-cia Plante, University provost. Piessure from the State Board of Higher Education (SBHE) as it attempts to determine inefficient programs at the schools it governs also led Plante to ask for the ter-mination, she said. ISTC courses to still be offered through Gen. Ed. by Robert M. Graham News editor Despite Monday's termination of the major in Instructional Tech-nology by the University Senate, qot all Instructional Technology course offerings will be terminated. The University will continue to (lifer courses in the areas of library and information services and school library media through the �ePartment of General Education, according to Linda Burton, chair of the Department of Instructional 'rechnologY. Dr. Royce W. Van Norman, chair of the General Education Depart-inent, said he does not ""anticipate 4fly changes in courses or HEGIS (the 0601 departmental code for the department) numbers."" Van Norman said he feels the decisione to nut the courses under ,the General Education domain is a logical one. ""We are responsible for courses that apply to all teacher certifications and it is natural for them (the Instructional Technol- �gY courses) to be a part of General Education."" His department offers the courses that every education major nmst take to graduate and get state certification. Both departments, Van Norman said, teach courses that apply to students wishing to teach kindergarten to high school Children. ""Instructional Technology courses are kindergarten to grade tWelve and they fall under General Education,"" he said. Van Norman said the budgetary Provisions for the switch ""haven't been worked out in detail yet."" But he said the budgetary requirement for the Instructional Technology courses will be lessened because the chair position will be eliminated. Burton, who will become a pro-gram coordinator in the General Education Department, said she felt the University Senate's deci-sion was warranted. ""The department was not able to cut costs to run the program as we felt we need to,"" she said. ""The cost per credit for offering the under-graduate major is $166 this sem-ester,"" said Burton. Dr. Patricia Plante, University Provost, told the University Senate that that cost is too high for a pre-professional program that does not satisfy General Univer-sity Requirements (GURs). ""We need majors and what we have (17 full- and part-time majors this semester) is too small to sus-tain the program,"" Plante said. Burton said she agreed with Plante and that her department was involved in making the deci-sion. ""We developed a plan based on Dr. Plante's request,"" she said. But Burton did mention that the cost per credit could be construed as misleading because the In-structional Technology program is compared to communication pro-grams instead of other Instruc-tional programs. ""We feel like we are the oranges in the apples,"" Burton said. Part of the problem in compar-ing the programs lies in the fact that there is only one other Instruc-tional Technology program in the state. The University of Maryland College Park offers the major, but is presently waiting the Board of Regents approval to discontinue this major, Burton said. ""We get compared to other schools of communication and we are not the same,"" Burton added. Burton said the pre-professional Instructional Technology pro-gram say the program is not in keeping with student demands in the 1980's. ""We have not been able to attract many majors because mass com-munication is a popular major,"" Burton said. She added that the ""stereotype associated with librar-ians"" has hurt the recruitment efforts of her department. Under the procedures for termi-nating the Instructional Technol-ogy major, the existing majors will be allowed to complete their degrees. ""We will fulfill our obligations to them, but we will not take in any new students for the major,"" Plante said. Before passing the motion, sena-tors voiced concern about what would happen to the five faculty members teaching Instructional Tech-nology courses. Plante told the sena-tors that the teachers would as-sume the same role, only now under the Department of General Educa-tion. Under the approved procedures, a faculty member who teaches cour-ses offered in two departments will have a home department and a host department. The home department, where the professor must teach at least 25 percent of his course load, will be the department where he is a full-priviledged member. Therefore he will have all the Heil IA and respon-sibilities of any other instructor in that department. The host depart-ment will be the department where some courses are offered by the instructor, but he will not be a member of that department's fac-ulty. A motion was also passed to add a conflict of interest clause, mak-ing it unlawful for a University faculty or staff member to partici-pate in an official capacity if a con-tract with a group he has a finan-cial interest in is involved. Plante said she felt that the ad-dition was important for the Fac-ulty Handbook to concurs with the Conflict of Interest Law in the Annotated Code of Maryland. The Senate defeated by a 20-3 vote a proposal for each depart-ment's Promotion and Tenure chair to duplicate and distribute promotion papers to faculty members. Senators said that the responsi-bility could be forgotten and there-fore promotions and requests for tenure could be delayed. By defeating the motion, the old policy that had the University Pro-motion and Tenure Committee hand-ling distribution of the forms will continue. Also, to the University Promo-tion and Tenure Committee went a proposal for determining a proce-dure for promoting instructors not holding doctorate degrees. The pro-cedures were sent back to the com-mittee for the correcting of errors in wording and clarity. A policy created by the Continu-ing Studies and the University Pro-motions and Tenure Committees was tabled until the Senators could determine who they wanted to have those instructors teaching non-day school courses be evaluated by students. The policy called for instructors to be evaluated by students for every course they teach. Senators complained that that much eva-luating would devalue the evalua-tion process in the eyes of students and instructors, and it would mean that some instructors would be teaching a course beyond the usual lead, would be evaluated in a course they could not give their full attention to. Among the motions the Univer-sity Senate will consider at its Dec. 5 meeting will be a proposal to include a one-flay mid-semester break during the Fall semester, beginning in Fall 1988. Communication breakdown led to restrictions on SGA by Lisa M. Quill Editorin-chief ""It was a classic administrative communication breakdown, which we have all the time; this one was just a little bit more spectacular than some others,"" said Dr. Hoke L. Smith, Towson State University President, referring to the events which led Vice President for Stu-dent Services Dorothy Siegel to limit the autonomy of the Student Government Association. October 20, Siegel initiated her plans to ""limit the authority"" of the SGA because she believed ""controls [in the executive budget] have disappeared."" Since that time, however, the University has discovered that the procedural checks governing the SGA's auto-nomy do exist and were being enforced. ""SGA followed procedure,"" Smith said. The problem was ""com-munication, a lack of clarity in some cases of jobs, of what the job responsibilities are, and I think a lot of it occurred because we had a number of changes in the person-nel when Terry Smith [former associate vice president in charge of the University Union and Din-ing facilities] left. ""There were just some settling in to a new job where people just changed, just a little bit, how the job was carried out,"" Smith con-tinued. ""I assumed that things were still going on as they were before and they weren't, which was my error."" As a result, Smith will be work-ing in conjunction with both the business office and student servi-ces to ""try to clarify what the jobs are.. .and take a look at whether we need to adjust content of some jobs."" In doing so, Smith hopes to ""help clarify where overlaps and gaps exist,"" and to prevent such misunderstandings from occur-ring in the future. According to Smith, ""some of the problems are taking care of them- BSU takes biggest cut selves""; nevertheless, he still plans to make sure that the lack of com-munication will no longer exist and that similar problems are avoided in the future. But this pro-cess is admittedly a slow one. ""One reason we're not moving very rapidly is that we are bringing in somebody [to fill the position of associate vice president in charge of the Union and Dining Servi-ces],"" Smith said. He also said that there ""may or may not be re-organization,"" de-pending upon further input from the various departments. ""I don't make it a practice...to do other than suggest to vice presi-dents about the internal organiza-tion. Otherwise, they're not run-ning the show."" Smith said that he will act as a critic, raising ques-tions and commenting on what he feels are the strengths and wea-knesses of organizations, but will not mandate because ""if the nrfsi-dent ever gets involved in the third or fourth levels of providing spe-cific job descriptions or in hiring or in moving or in reassigning people, then what's the role of the vice president?"" Although Smith would not corn-ment on what may or may not be done in the future because ""that weakens the administrative struc-ture,"" he did talk about some of the positive things which resulted from the initial controversy. ""What the whole incident did is very beneficial: it provoked a dis-cussion about the role of the Towerlight; it provoked a discus-sion about the role of various peo-ple in the buildings, and I think that needed to be clarified,"" Smith said. And, it caused people to take a See SMITH, page 2 SGA to recognize Hoffman as sole administrative advisor by Doug Wood News reporter In Tuesday's SGA Senate Meet-ing, President Melanie Goldsmith announced that Marion Hoffman. Dean of Student Services, will be made the ""sole administration advisor"" to the SGA. ""The role of the advisor has been redefined in that Dean of Student Development will be the sole advi-sor for the Student government Association,"" said Goldsmith. Dean Hoffman said that the move was made primarily to for-malize relations between the SGA and the administration, but would probably not have a great impact upon the operation of the SGA. ""I'm hoping it will allow us to keep strong the relationship between the administration and the SGA,"" said Hoffman. In other business, a bill was introduced to allocate a supple-ment of $2,750 to the TSU Intra-mural Department for the purpose of attending the 1986-87 National Collegiate Flag football Champion-ship in New Orleans. The SGA appropriations committee re-ported that hearings would be held concerning the bill in a meeting of Monday. The Government Opera-tions committee reported that it had no business this meeting. Senator Paul Norfolk an-nounced that an organizational meeting would be held for the BACCHUS alcohol awareness pro-gram Monday, December 8, at 3pm in Room 309 of the University Union. SGA budgets organizations at hearing by Vince Russomanno News reporter In fall budget hearings the Stu-dent Government Association allocated a total of $18,639.44 stay-ing within the $20,000 limit deem-ed ""safe"" by SGA President Melanie Goldsmith during the Nov. 18 Senate meeting. Each organization met with the Financial Advisory Board (FAB) prior to the SGA hearings and was giVen the chance to justify its budget request. From there, the FAB makes allocation recommen-dations to the SGA. ""We only had $20,000 to work with so we were a lot more con-scientious and made cuts that were definitely necessary,"" said Regina Lennon, chair of the FAB. Two factors that helped curb over-budgetting were the absence of larger accounts, funded yearly rather every semester such as the Towerlight and WCVT, in addition to stricter FAB guidelines. Originally, the combined sum of funds requested by the 15 organi-zations was $41,129.61. By meet-ing with each organization, the FAB was able to reduce the budget by $22,820.62. They recommended a total budget of $18,308.99 to the SGA. In prior budgeting, the FAB would allocate 190 a mile, for gas and wear and tear to the automo-bile, to the Travel Account in cases where travel was essential, such as conferences and bringing speakers on campus, according to Lennon. ""We found it was cheaper for us to pay for the gas only,"" said Lennon. Through these cuts in the Travel Accounts of several organizations, the FAB was able to cut $1,698.90 from the total budget. The bulk of the remaining cuts were made in the supplies and equipment accounts. The FAB denied funding for such things as envelopes, calculators and books. ""A lot of times we fund for the same things year after year."" ""After awhile we begin to wonder what happened to the stuff we funded for last year,"" said Eli-zabeth Bozievich, Assistant Busi-ness Manager for the SGA. Since the FAB handled most of the major budget cutting, the SGA found little to trim. In 11 of 15 cases the SGA passed the FAB budget recommendation while raising 3 of the budget recommendations. ""Some organizations did not have specific information about certain accounts at the FAB meet-ings and we expected that addi-tional funding would be necessary after they presented the back-ground information we request-ed,"" said Lennon. The three groups who received the additional funding were the Jewish Student Association (JSA), Alpha Epsilon Rho and the Black See BUDGET, page 2 BUDGET REQUESTS Spring, 1987 ORGANIZATION BUDGET REQUEST FAR RECOMMENDATION SEN � TE ALLOCATION Alpha Epsilon Rho $ 630.00 $ 394.70 439.70 American Marketing Association 1,228.85 919.75 919.75 American Production & Inventory Control Society 1,113.27 590.22 590.22 American Society of Personnel Administrators 344.90 332.60 332.60 Biology Club 1,211.00 606.00 606.00 Black Student Union 14,432.00 1.708.25 2,064.70 Circle K 545.89 476.67 476.67 Commuter Association 580.00 305.00 0 Forensics Union 12,280.00 7,500.00 7,500.00 Grub Street Wit 2,580.00 1,360.00 1.360.00 International Club 832.00 515.00 515.00 Jewish Students Association 775.30 406.80 650.80 Model O.A.S. 1,206.00 1,179.00 1,179.00 Rugby Club 1,180.00 920.00 920.00 Society of Physics Students 400.00 295.00 295.00 Student Athletic Trainers Associatio 1,808.40 800.00 800.00 TOTAL REQUESTS I 41,129.61 18,908.99 $ 18,639.44 "