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Displaced Art students seek space resolution On March 10, the state building inspector closed the Clark Hall graduate painting studios for fire, health and safety reasons. This event displaced nine Master of Fine Art students, prevented them from doing their work and disrupted their community. We, the graduate art students, have requested that the University administration provide a safe and permanent residence for the painting program in which these nine MFA graduate painters may continue as a community. Despite several meetings that have occurred between the administration and the Department of Art, there has been no resolution. On March 22, the graduate art students sent a letter of concern regarding the closing of Clark Hall to the University administrators, including Chancellor Scott, Provost Marrett, and Lee Edwards, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities. We have not yet received a response. The nine students have been temporarily relocated to buildings that are already occupied by other students or have the same health and fire hazard violations. Eight of the nine displaced MFA graduate painters are currently teaching. The loss of their studio space challenges their effectiveness and accessibility as teachers, as well as their own ability to meet the requirements of the MFA Program. The administration's practice of biased facility allocation is a problem that faces the Art student body. The closing of Clark Hall is a clear indication that the University prefers to focus its budgetary considerations in favor of a few narrowed but profitable disciplines, which raise external revenue based on the market demand for this type of knowledge. Should external monies dictate budget allocations at the expense of providing students with a rounded education? Is it not the responsibility of higher educational institutions to make sure the arts are maintained? We feel that the cultivation of the arts begins at the level of public education and should be supported by our flagship university. It seems appropriate that the University provide us with the facilities we need in order to continue as students and artists. We hope that our requests will be met with more than an obligatory response or temporary solution. It is our hope that our cause will be embraced by our community as it is representative of the struggle for the livelihood of the arts. SASHA APPLETON Provost Cora Marrett responds: As with the problems in Clark Hall, we are often faced with a sudden crisis because of rulings by the state building inspector. In such cases, Facilities Planning, Physical Plant and Space Management respond immediately, with short-term solutions that permit faculty and students to continue their work as the highest priority. The long-term needs these crises often trigger must then be fit into the campus's capital plan, and that is now occurring with respect to the Art Department's facilities needs. The sudden loss of facilities in which to carry out research, scholarship and creative activities is terribly disruptive, and we are therefore committed to using the resources we have to minimize the scope and duration of any impact on faculty and students. It must be acknowledged, however, that these kinds of episodes will only increase until we are able to secure the funding necessary to implement a program of facilities renewal. The Massachusetts Society of Professors, the Alumni Association, the Ambassadors Program and others have taken this challenge as a high priority, and I urge every member of the campus community to support those efforts and make a personal contribution to them. Report on ozone study misleading "Study of tobacco plants offers insights into hidden dangers of low-level ozone" (May 12) is a headline that seems a bit misleading. Isn't the study really about the effect of (at least relatively) high-level ozone? Obviously, one has to study the effect of different levels of ozone in order to determine its relationship to plants. The real concern, however, is with high, not low, levels of ambient ozone. Also characterizing ozone as "the main component of smog" is a bit strange. One might note it is the most toxic component ... but the "main?" At least you caught my eye. Extra attention to detail is important when public media undertake reporting on scientific matters, perhaps especially so in the area of health. Thank you for including news of the study. ROBERT W. GAGE, M.D. Vice president rebuts senate report's comments The Faculty Senate's report, "Factors Affecting the Budget of the Amherst Campus with Recommendations to the President and Trustees," dated April 13, makes a number of erroneous or misleading statements about the Intercampus Graduate School of Marine Sciences and Technology (IGS). I would like to take this opportunity to correct the record. The budget figures cited in the Senate report are from an early version of the IGS Proposal which called for a new dean to be hired from outside the system. The final proposal, approved by the trustees in February, calls for an annual budget of approximately $250,000 for the school itself ($150,000 of which is to seed intercampus research efforts, thus going directly to faculty and students). This modest budget will be met by a combination of President's Reserve Fund seed funding and a portion of overhead on new marine science grants. Costs to operate the proposed new marine science degree programs would need to be shared among the campuses but are projected to be very modest as existing faculty and courses would be used. The Amherst campus' "share" of the budget is therefore likely to be much smaller than what is suggested. The report suggests that a "lead campus" model for the IGS would be more credible and less costly. Given that the administrative leadership of the IGS consists of a dean from the Dart-mouth campus and an associate dean from the Boston campus, that all IGS faculty are on the campuses, and that the governance of the IGS is vested in the four campuses of which it is a part, it is difficult to imagine how a "lead campus" model could be any more cost efficient or draw more effectively on campus-based experience, facilities, and leadership. There is certainly no intention to "create a duplicative central staff" to run the IGS; nor will the President's Office serve as "locus" for this program. Anyone wishing to better understand the governance and administration of the IGS is encouraged to read the proposal online (www.umassp.edu/igs). Far from being a costly drain on the Amherst campus budget, the Intercampus Graduate School of Marine Sciences and Technology represents an exciting opportunity to attract new funding and new students, and to elevate the status and recognition of our strengths in marine sciences across the system. SELMA BOTMAN Joseph Larson, interim secretary of the Faculty Senate, replies: The report, including the $700,000 figure, was circulated to all campuses for comment. Following receipt of campus concerns, an interim three-year cost structure was devised by appointing internal deans, eliminating certain costs, obtaining a three-year subsidy from the President's Reserve Fund and gleaning for the school a portion of the indirect cost return from grants and contracts to be acquired through the school. An agreement was reached by Chancellor Scott with Vice President Botman that the future costs to the Amherst campus would not exceed 25 percent of the annual costs of the school. The subsidy from the President's Office has a term limit, as do the appointments of the interim deans. The full and true costs of the school's operating budget, salaries and fringe benefits will come due in FY2004. The senate's report takes the $700,000 figure as the best available predictor of the cost of running a viable school after three years of interim deans and subsidies expire. Our $175,000 figure is 25 percent of that cost. The proponents of the school initially predicted that new state dollars would very likely be provided by the legislature to fund the school. This anticipation did not survive to the final proposal. The senate has experience with optimistic projects of new grant and contract income and is mindful of the trustees' predictions of a coming downturn in the state's economy. The senate's report responsibly uses the working group's estimate as a long view on the actual costs of running the school. The issue of the "lead campus" model versus the decision to have the school report to the President's Office is a discussion that bears on the basic academic governance of the University. Assigning the school to a lead campus and chancellor would maintain the University's posture with respect to the widely accepted national norms of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) on university governance. These norms have long guided this University and our various accrediting agencies. They are incorporated into the Trustee Document on Governance, T-73-098 revised 2/3/93, and Trustee Document T-93-080 on the role of faculty in the review and retention of administrators. The legal staff of the President's Office put language into the motion that the trustees voted to establish the school, that exempts the operation of the school and its deans from these norms. The school's cognate faculty is not clearly specified, the school reports not to a chancellor, but to a non-academic unit. The faculty to be affiliated with the school have no role in evaluating the deans or their faculty colleagues. Quality control in admissions and degree programs is vested, not in the faculty, but in the deans. Degrees are to be awarded in the name of four campuses. These issues will need to be re-visited in the fall when the senate is asked to approve the new M.S. and Ph.D. programs for the school. The faculty of this campus will have to decide whether these departures from nationally accepted governance norms will provide an academic environment supportive of high quality graduate programs. |
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