ustxtxb_obs_1970_08_21_50_00013-00000_000.pdf

Page 12

by

Intermission was called for lunch, and after lunch, the play digressed into a long presentation on marine science. Finally, late in the afternoon, the action was brought to its expected conclusion. Chairman Erwin lost control of the play at one point in the afternoon, when Pam Diamond, a UT student, was allowed to present to the board a petition containing 7,000 student signatures protesting Silber’s firing and the division of the A&S College. An impressive two-thirds of the A&S students enrolled in summer school signed the petition, Miss Diamond said. THEN THE play returned to Erwin’s script, and on cue, Regent Joe Kilgore says to Jordan: “I think it is important for everyone to know specifically what is your personal recommendation for the College of Arts and Sciences, aside from the orders given to you and the job assigned to you. What recommendations would you make to the board?” Jordan answers dutifully: “My recommendation would be exactly the same as the one before the board.” Erwin asks Dr. Frank Harrison, the president of UT-Arlington, how his school has fared with a divided A&S College, and Harrison pops up from the audience and answers: “It’s been working very well. I think the case has been overstated on the necessity of a single administration.” Kilgore, playing the role of an independent regent, then declaims: “I am disturbed by the evident belief of outstanding educators and sincere students that this plan poses a threat to liberal education. I am further disturbed that it will cause able educators to leave. I don’t invite anyone to leave.” \(This last sentence is a reference to an earlier statement by Erwin that professors that are unhappy with the situation at UT are welcome to Kilgore proposes that the regents dress up their A&S proposal with a statement saying that the division will be carried out with the consultation of the A&S faculty and that it will preserve “the unitary nature of liberal education.” Jenkens Garrett, another regent who has been a silent figure on the stage up until this point, has a speech near the end of the play. In an attempt to speak in favor of the action the regents obviously are destined to take on the A&S College, Garrett says: “We are going to be setting ourselves up as a committee of reorganization. This is just what we don’t want to do. This is a faculty responsibility.” Garrett’s speech brought chortles and applause from the audience and a blush from Erwin, but Garrett seemed impervious to the import of his words. The regents unanimously agree to divide the college. Jack Josey, regents vice-chairman, ends the play by proposing a vote of confidence for Chancellor-elect Charles LeMaistre and President Jordan. And its curtains for the University of Texas. K.N. Corpus Christi Following are excerpts from Dr. John Silber’s speech to the UT Board of Regents. At the outset I should like to limit the scope of my remarks. I do not question either the authority or the power of the chancellor or the president to remove me from office summarily or otherwise. I do not come before the board to discuss my personal situation or to ask any reversal of it. If the regents wish to discuss my dismissal, I should only ask that I be privy to that discussiop, as it so clearly concerns me…. We face … a procedural issue of very great importance. Shall a faculty and a dean of a college be consulted in matters of primary concern to that faculty and dean, or shall they be effectively bypassed by directive of system administration? It is of fundamental importance that the principle of faculty consultation and faculty autonomy on an issue that is clearly academic in nature -be observed. In my opinion, disregard for this principle will most adversely affect the stability of our campus at a time when stresses will already be high as a consequence of enrollment increases, the shift to the new calendar, and confusions brought about by our new system of registration. I urge that no reorganization of the College of Arts and Sciences be enacted unless it is first submitted to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences for consideration. Such consideration is of great importance to faculty morale even if the recommendations of the faculty are not fully accepted. If you adopt a plan for the organization of the College of Arts and Sciences that is in fundamental opposition to the recommendation of the Commission and in clear opposition to the Watt, Ruud, and Sutherland Reports, to recommendations by Deans Burdine and Macdonald, and by student committees, it will appear to be utterly cynical and contemptuous of faculty opinion. You will run the risk of producing substantial and totally unnecessary deterioration in faculty morale. You have no reason, gentlemen, to expect a faculty to remain at this college if it is treated with cynicism and contempt…. REST ASSURED the adoption of this plan is a ravaging of the liberal arts college and undergraduate teaching by the graduate and professional schools. Graduate education in narrow professional schools a kind of education that is already obsolete and discredited at more advanced centers of learning will triumph under this plan. In progressive graduate education, the emphasis today is increasingly directed toward interdisciplinary work. We can make our way toward Johns Hopkins of 50 years ago if we try hard. This plan does not facilitate and encourage interdisciplinary teaching and research; rather it encourages the breakup and division of those unities and interdisciplinary contacts that have already been established, making far more difficult the establishment of new interdisciplinary lines. A single dean faces sufficient resistance from department chairmen in the development of interdisciplinary work on both the graduate and undergraduate levels. How much more difficult will be the task of a provost in facing the resistance, not merely of department chairmen, but of the deans of these special schools. I cannot find a basis for liberal ”arts education in this organizational chart in which the College of Arts and Sciences is absent, a chart with an office of provost and little boxes all separated discretely from one another. Rather, I find the structure for liberal education in a college conceived as a great circle, presided over by a variety of personalities, the most public and visible of which might be its dean. But of great visibility and of far greater importance would be the hundreds of faculty cooperating with him in that vast single enterprise. My vision is of the College as a living cell in which there are nuclei of interest and activity. We find identifiable concentrations in the humanities, in the social sciences, and in the sciences. But there are equally important centers of activity and excitement in areas that transcend all traditional departments and divisions. We find nexus of activities in Plan II, in lecture programs and courses in Ethnic Studies, Hebrew Studies, in ecological developments drawing upon the resources of economists, sociologists, biologists, philosophers, and artists. Throughout this highly complex living unity we find men and women with differing administrative responsibilities. Some we would call associate deans of special programs, some directors of programs such as Plan II or Hebrew August 21, 1970 13