1994 v22 i9

Page 1

Open forum with Strauss reveals mixed feelings among students by M ichael Caprio Associate Editor Last Wednesday in Riley Commons, President Strauss held an open forum with a full room of WPI students to discuss items and statements revealed in a recently released report. The paper, titled “The New WPI”, was released by the President and the Pro­ vost on March 22, and contains a num­ ber of proposals ranging from chang­ ing the name of the Institute; to re­ organizing the various academic de­ partments into “schools”; to improv­ ing the quality of life on campus. The paper summarizes recommendations made by the hired consulting firm of Barton Gillet, who were employed to help define a new marketing strategy for WPI and analyze the situation of the school’s financial status, as well as the Blue Ribbon Task Force, and the Marketing Task Force. President Strauss opened the forum by summarizing the contents of the report, which had been handed out to the audience, and had earlier in the week been posted to the campus com­

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One of these effects was the “vocation­ puter network on the newsgroups. Es­ detrimental to the goals stated in the al school” image that the word poly­ report. The reasons behind this ranged sentially, the report states that the school technic projects for European cultures, from worries that the word “universi­ is in dire straits because of a decrease in thus limiting job opportunites over­ ty” would give people the wrong im­ “ability to pay” applicants. The number seas and decreasing the number of pression of the school to feared chang­ of applications has dropped by 8% for es in the curriculum that would reflect overseas applicants. next fall’s enrollment, and the percent­ When asked how alumnis felt about a move away from the engineering and age of Financial aid awarded in lieu of the proposed name change, President tuition has grown drastically in compar­ technical background of the school to Strauss replied that those ison to net revenue. “The alumnis who had graduated goal,” states the report, “is lo "T h e g o a l," slates the report, "is to im prove more than 25 years ago had no improve net tuition revenue net tuition revenue by attracting m ore, h o p efu lly concerns about the change, by attracting more, hopefully and that if it benefitted the higher ability to pay, appli­ h ig h er ability to pay, applicants fr o m w hich a school, the action should be cants from which a higher h ig h er quality, h igher net revenue student body taken - but those alumnis un­ quality, higher net revenue can be selected." der 25 years, he said, were not student body can be select­ - T h e X e w W n i R eport as positive about the proposed ed.” This is to be achieved change. through marketing - “the data suggests this to be more a marketing An unidentified individual in the something else Entirely. audience, a man in his apparently mid than a programmatic challenge.” In President Strauss replied to these to late 30’s, rose and spoke out on collusion with this, the changes pro­ concerns with the following statement: several issues. He indicated that he posed follow recommendations made “You don’t just change the name and was not alone in his opinions, and by the previously mentioned consult­ suddenly solve the problem. The ques­ made several statements to the effect ants and task forces. tion is, how do we avoid letting our that the campus was wasting tremen­ A good number of the students felt name limit our appeal?” There were dous amounts of money on “useless”, uncom fortable with the proposed many concerns brought up over the studies that are “telling the school change of name from WPI to “WPI possible delimiting effect of the word nothing”. The individual also claimed University: Gateway to the Profes­ “polytechnic” in the name of the school, both in the report and in the audience. that it it was not necessary to build a sions”, and thought that it could be

campus center, citing the reason of “coming to school for an education... it’s not our fault if students aren’t imaginative enough to find things to do.” He also suggested that instead of consulting the community for input on issues like parking, it would be more economical to simply pave something over, and also suggested that the most beneficial action President Strauss could take would be to resign; after doing so he left the forum. Other questions that came up relat­ ed to issues of social life and problems related to the general quality of life on campus. One student felt that there was “no social life on campus at all”, and that if the situation there was resolved, the campus would indeed look more attractive to future appli­ cants. Another question concerned the reasons why industrial engineering is not an accredited program here, and whether or not that could increase the attractiveness of the campus to future applicants. The president indicated that there was indeed increasing senti­ ment for making just this sort of change among the faculty.

The Student Newspaper of Worcester Polytechnic Institute

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Tuesday , March 29,1994

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Volume Twenty-twoy Number Nine

Possibility of WPI/Clark Management Department merger by Eric Craft Associate Editor On December 6, 1993 a proposal was written by Dean Robert Ullrich and Provost Kasperson of Clark Uni­ versity concerning a possible merger of the Clark and WPI management departments. After reading the pro­ posal. Provost Apelian called a meet­ ing with the faculty of W PI’s Depart­ ment of Management on Dec. 17. Af­ ter discussing the proposal, the depart­ ment agreed to meet again on Jan. 24 to decide to explore the proposal. At

this meeting, the Management De­ partment did decide to explore the proposal, and decided to form a task force to do this. A vision was also established for the merger: “A merger of the Clark and WPI management programs is proposed as a first step in creating an international­ ly prominent school of management in Central Mass. The merger would pro­ vide an essential part of the where­ withal needed to achieve the quality and scale o f operations found in the nation’s premier business schools. The

intention is that the merged school would compete on equal terms with schools such as Babson College and Boston University before the end of the decade and compete with top-tier schools such as Amos Tuck and Yale within ten years after that. “As is the case with all top-tier m anagement schools, the merged school would pursue (he highest levels of excellence in teaching, research, and service to the community. More precisely, the school would focus its resources in relatively few areas of endeavor. Building on the present

strengths of the separate schools the merged school would make its major research and teaching contributions in the areas of: health administration; the management of technology; and new venture management, including entre­ preneurship and economic develop­ ment. Service contributions would be made primarily in the management and professional communities.” To simplify the above vision state­

Campus Hearing Board holds elections by Adam Egdall Class o f '95 WPI has it’s own judicial system for dealing with violations of school poli­ cy as does almost every school of high­ er education in the US. Here at WPI though, things have been made a bit d iffe re n t w ith the in te n tio n o f benefitting the students. A Campus Hearing Board was created to provide students with their own court to deal with disciplinary problems. The Board, consisting o f eight voting members and one overseer, has an even number of students and teachers making it even more interactive with the student body than most schools. Three undergraduate students, and one graduate student, elected every DTerm (Elections are coming up on April 21st for those of you interested in running) join with three faculty mem­ bers and one administrative member to make up this part of W PI’s judicial system. Tw o of the three active full­ time undergraduate students and one of the faculty members are elected by the student body, as are three student alternates. Once elected, the position is held for the following school year. These formalities are important if you are interested in running for an office but what is even more important, and should be known by the student body.

is the purpose of such a committee. The Campus Hearing Board (CHB) is responsible for deciding cases brought up against students in many areas in­ cluding serious offenses such as Rape and Assault as well as allegations of Academic Dishonesty, mainly plagia­ rism. When any person is faced with such charges they are scheduled to meet with Janet Begin Richardson, Assistant Dean of Students and Case Officer to the CHB. Her responsibilities involve advising both parties involved in cases as to their rights and responsibilities and to act as a liaison to the board. Once a student has met with Assistant Dean Richardson, they can choose to go to a trial in front of the CHB. O f the near 200 cases every year, very few go in front of the board as students either fear such a hearing or departments are le­ nient and settle the matters internally so as to avoid further complications. In a future article, I will discuss the future plans of the judicial system at WPI. What is important for students to realize about the CHB is that it has been brought about for a good reason. Assistant Dean Richardson, in an in­ terview on this matter, stated, “It is so critical for WPI to have students who care about the community and have a diversity of students involved with the board to provide a balance.” This balance is maintained through the elec­

ment, the merger of Clark and WPI management departments has the pos­ sibility of making this merger na­ tionally renownd. One of the reasons that this merger has such high goals is the number of faculty that eachstrhool has in the Management Department. Clark has 19 full time faculty in its management department while WPI has 15 full time faculty. If these two Continued to page 2

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tions every year and do benefit the students here. Richardson also said that, “There are probably more cases of students being harassed than we hear about. They see people being victimized in TV shows like LA Law and fear the same victimization.” What she felt most students did not know about the CHB is that hearsay evi­ dence is allowed unlike a US court of law. This is how WPI has achieved a working judicial system to this point to aid students, not victimize them as Richardson suggests. It is a shame that many of the as­ saults that take place on campus go unnoticed and unheard. Students do have an outlet and a way to deal with these problems. The CHB is here for the students. It’s primary function is to hear alleged violations and determine what happened, not necessarily render judgement but rather deal with the case at hand in a private, individual way. Many more students could ben­ efit from this part of WPI that are currently shying away and it seems that unless students become more ac­ tive in the community here, this will continue to be the case. If you feel you ’ve been wronged or have any ques­ tions concerning the CHB, be sure to get a copy of this years Student Con­ duct Policies or see Assistant Dean Richardson in the Student Life Office.

A B O V E ^ r S id e n tS tr a ^ ^ e fc n d ^ m p ia in fo r W P r s T ^ ^ x during an open meeting held last Wednesday. (for more information on the meeting, see article top of page) BELOW: Hollybeth Normandin waits patiently to express her views on the issue to President Strauss.

Table o f Contents

Glee Club in Italy See page 3

In The \ e w s ................................... ..........................................2 ..........................................2 Arts & E ntertainm ent................... ..........................................3 Traditions D ay................................ ..........................................4 A n n o u n cem en ts.............................. ..........................................5 C om m en ta ry................................... ..........................................6 Diversity - O p in io n ........................ ...........................................6

Letters to the E d ito r........................................... ...................... 7 Student G overnm ent Association . .. ... 7 Graduate Student O rganization...................... ... 7 ...................... 8 9 G reek C orner.................................. .................... I I .................... 12

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1994 v22 i9 by WPI Archives - Issuu