Wsu: The Siege Of Montieth

WDET          Monteith College

WSU:  The Siege of Monteith

By Maureen McDonald

"Students in the Sixties were talking about peace in Vietnam. We're talking about budgets now. . . one Trident missile would keep Monteith operating for the next five years. "

Take a group of students sitting around sipping Stroh's, smoking Marlboros and Kools, and brainstorming about how to keep an urban laboratory from the clutches of the administration's accountants.

"We've got to build a broad base, a unified action against the university, find out where the university stands with cutbacks. Because there's been a lot of cutbacks in humanities, liberal arts, music and art department supplies, minority recruitment programs, student loans. Monteith is not an isolated circumstance. . . We're all in this together."

Dennis Albers takes a swig on his beer and looks directly at all 30 people gathered in an Ad Hoc Committee to study the university's finance problems. Nancy Christianson, president of the Student-Faculty Commission, begins reeling off facts about the proposed budget cuts-which will be finalized at the December 12 meeting of the Wayne Board of Governors.

Persistent rumors and recent votes of university administrators and faculty spell the doom of Monteith College, the home of progressive learning on campus. University funding of WDET, Detroit's non-commercial public radio station- which offers a wide variety of musical and public affairs programming, unavailable elsewhere- will be slashed to pay homage to the Fiscal Debt.

Wayne is not alone. All 95 state-supported two- and four-year learning institutions have been told to cut their operating budgets by at least four per cent. At Wayne, that amounts to $8.2 million dollars out of the total $106 million budget for 1975-76.

"Students are not being consulted," Albers says. "No student has been asked about cutbacks and elimination of programs, and we are the sole reason for this University's existence!"

"We've got to hit the university on all sides with our demands. We've got to finagle our way around the bureaucracy to make our point clear. Anyone have any suggestions?"

Students shared suggestions ranging from an "overthrow of the university hierarchy by a coalition of students and workers" to a letter-writing campaign organized by the Chicano community to a class action suit filed by students, who feel their right to be educated has been denied by the budget cuts.

One student suggested an alliance of students throughout the country to gather in Washington, D.C. and lobby for additional higher education funds, largely for liberal arts majors.

"Here at Wayne we're talking about the murder of an academie discipline," Albers says. "If the University can cut this program, they can cut any program. Who knows, there might not be a liberal arts school in the future. Wayne has a responsibility to provide an education for us - we've paid for it. Instead, we are the executioners for their decisions."

The problem for all 30,000-plus students is where the cuts should be made. Many students agree that the liberal arts and other undergraduate programs are playing second fiddle to the burgeoning graduate and professional programs. Wayne's Medical School, now the third largest doctor factory in the country, has by far the fattest budget, with some professors earning more than President Gullen - who makes $57,000 annually.

Still other students ask why any budget cuts should be made, because Wayne has a long way to go to catch up with the budgets of Michigan State University and the University of Michigan.

The Wayne Board of Governors recognizes the disparity. At their November 14 meeting, the board ignored Gov. Milliken's directions to reduce spending and asked the state for an increased appropriation of $16.7 million.

George Edwards, president of the board, holds the most resentment against the U of M. "Those bastards couldn't possibly have a budget crisis," he says. "The U of M is so fat, the school is on such an easy street, I don't think they've signed one unemployment check all this fiscal year. We've signed 330 of them. And every individual one hurts. The U of M is a WASP school where alumni send their sons and daughters, who in turn send their sons and daughters- and it doesn't have half the potential of Wayne State."

Rep. George Cushingberry, a former Wayne State Student Government President, says Wayne must continually fight against the bigger institutions for funding and notes it can't buy legislators with season passes to football games.

"Wayne should be a laboratory in which urban problems are studied and worked out," says Cushingberry. "It has the natural setting and is one of the greatest urban institutions around."

Monteith Dean Yates Hafner says his college of 7,139 students is an urban laboratory, where students study the history of ideas and concepts and discuss the larger implications for the future. In a 33-page report by Hafner and Monteith professors, they cite the numerous studies done by professors at other colleges, including Antioch, which show that even average students entering Monteith graduate with a great deal of awareness about themselves and their environment. Hafner cites statistics on medical doctors, lawyers and college deans who are graduates of the program. The engineering school at WSU has a shared program where technical majors study a percentage of their time at Monteith in order to balance their education.

"the engineering school could have chosen liberal arts, but they came to us and asked that we design a program to give a thorough learning base. This is something that cannot be duplicated in the mainstream liberal arts program."

Hafner says none of the professors in Monteith have "jumped ship" and transferred to other colleges within the University.

Help could come from alumni endowments. But alumni are sometimes finicky about where their dollars are spent. Edwards said the board of governors may be forced to reject a $500,000 gift from the Prentiss family because they insist the money go for medical students' scholarships. "We insist that the 27,000 students in the general university need a chance at scholarships. The med school has enough funds."

The Prentiss family has already had a medical building dedicated to a member, Helen Lundy, but they refuse to relinquish control of the money. President Gullen has a personal budget of almost $44,000 to dedicate buildings with. Edwards says the president must do a good deal of fondling, hand holding and downright persuasion just to gain sizeable alumni contributions - let alone stipulate where that money most desperately needs to go.

Gullen is also budgeted nearly $15,000 to aid the public relations effort and over $21,000 in "expenses." The president's total budget of $205,405.66, which includes everything from paper clips to salaries - including his own $57,000 salary.

Tom Panzenhagen, editor of Wayne's paper, the South End, said he hopes spending cuts are made in Gullen's budget.

The paper has made repeated efforts to obtain a further breakdown of Gullen's expense account, but the requests have been denied flatly. There is some talk of laying off two of the seven executive vice presidents in Gullen's office. Panzenhagen would like the board to lay off Gullen when his contract expires in spring. Panzenhagen says Gullen places his priorities in bricks and concrete looming up around the medical campus, rather than the programs in the main university along Cass Avenue.

Monteith operates out of a dilapidated house on Prentis Street. Dean Hafner says the school is not asking for modern quarters, increased supplies or anything else - just continuance of a program which offers students the tools for learning.

Monteith will survive through June, regardless of board action, because tenured professors must be given an 18-month notice of dismissal, and non-tenured faculty must receive a year's warning. Students must be given time to find new colleges where Monteith-style learning is still considered a worthwhile budget expenditure. A class action suit, filed on behalf of the rights of Monteith students, may tie up the college in the courts for over a year. Given the time to evaluate the pleas of students and the report furnished by Monteith's dean, the Board of Governors may decide against closing the college. They have the option of making budget cuts across the board, and the option to continue to refuse to make any cuts. The board did this last month, and could very well do it again. They are scheduled to consider the issue on Friday, December 12, at 9 a.m. in the Alumni Lounge of the McGregor Memorial Center.