.Ioinl'Bourtl Reiecls
Plea For Housing Quotas

Housing proposals and an extended
food service plan occupied the Joint
Board in its last meeting under out»
gomg President Shelley Floyd. The
meeting‘s major business, consi-
deration of the Housing Committee
recommendations, was delayed until
near meeting’s end, but the recom-
mendations were eventually ap-
proved.

The meeting was called because of
apparent widespread student dissar
tisfaction with a recommendation to
abolish room draw quotas. In its
report, the Committee pointed out
that quotas had originally been es
tablished to prevent cllquelshness
and fraternity-like systems in
men’s halls - neither of which exist
today.

Therefore, the Committee decided
that quotas should experimentally be
abolished next year, Jane Lamenss
dorf of Social Policies and Regular
tions, pointed out that the results
of such a move could not be deter-
mined until it was tried.

A large group of students led by
Greg Golder felt differently. Peti-
tions signed by almost 200 students,
asking tor the retention of quotas
were presented to the meeting. Repr
resentatlves of the group argued that
it quotas were dropped, some halls
might be predominantly composed of
one class grouping.

Opponents of quotas noted their in-
effectiveness, noting that Mears,
Main, James, Clark and Norris were
allover 50% freshmen and that in
fact, quotas had been completely ef-
fective in only two halls, Read and
Smith.

After considerable debate, it was
moved that quotas be retained. The
motion was defeated by a 1076 vote,
and the remainder of the Housing
Committee report was then ap-
proved.

The Boards then debated the res
vised Black Housing proposal, which
would spread clusters more evenly
on North Campus. The plan places

from

ANALYSIS page

in practice, the requirements ofthe
job are not much less ambiguous.
There are presently no formal job
duties or structure, and with one
exception, all the RA’S whom the
8&3 contacted thought there should
be no such formalized structure.

Prudence Milite, RA for Gates,
Cowles, and Dibble, stated that the
RA's develop their own style for
working with their specific groups;
they Iind out the kinds of people
they‘ll be dealing with, and meet the
needs of those groups, In addition,
prudence noted, any formal job
description would not be Valid be—
cause what students expect and want
from RA‘s changes from year to
year.

Pam and Paul Wrightman, RA’s for
Loose and Read concluded that
structure was not necessary and
would only hamper the RA. Rose-
mary Ash, hit for Cleveland, Main,
and Mears, commented that the free—
dom of the RA here is "valuable and
rare”, but that it has its negative
aspects; sometimes the job goes to
the extreme in lacking structure.
This seems most obvious at tile bee
ginning of the year when the new RA
must adapt to the complete lack of
structure and to the type ol lltestyle
here, as well as establish a means
of fulfilling the duties as be under-
stands them. However, Rosemary
does not see how structure and free-
dom can be combined.

Improvement in communications is
a major concern of both the RA'S
and the Administration, Although
communication between ﬁA's and
SA's was to have been established
at the beginning of the year through

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small clusters in Smith, Rawson,
and Dibble with a larger cluster in
Younkers.

Donna Rothenberg, who had cast the
sole dissenting vote in s R it P,
explained her doubt oi the necessity
at a separate room draw for black
students. after discussion. in which
Barry l-lun explained how clusters
had improved the campus atmos-
phere for Black freshmen, the Board
approved the Black Housing pro-
posal. Both housing plans will now
go to President Leggett for final
action.

Three other items took ofthe early
portion of the meeting, Jerry Rae
maker, Ralph Pomerenk, and the
SAGA managers appeared before the
Board to explain a tentative plan for
extended food service schedules.
Under the proposal, Breakfast would
begin at 7:15 and run to 8:30 with
Continental Breakfast from 8:35 to
10:00; Lunch would run from “:00
to 1:00 with Light Lunch (soup,
sandwiches, or casserole) from l:05
to 2:30; and Dinner would run from
4:30 to 6:45.

Board members voiced several
objections. First, there would be a
possibility of higher costs under the
plan. However, it was deemed that
no determination could be made on
this point until a complete study of
the proposal was completed,

Several Presidents also expressed
the idea that any money spent on
SAGA should go to an increase in
the quality of the food. The managers
indicated that the new plan might
allow both.

Finally, a number of people objec-
ted to the abolition of sit down din—
her, which the proposal would ne-
cessitate. They felt that many peo-
ple liked having a served meal.

The Board members agreed With—
out a vote to solicit the opinions of
their hall‘s presidents and recom-
mend that the Food and Facilities
Sub-Committee begin an in depth
study of the proposal,

meetings, these did not work out
well. Several RA’s said that the
ambiguities of the role definitions
in house presidents, Sh's and Kits
could be eliminated by 1) training
programs for SA's and 2) meetings
with house presidents SA‘s and RA's
at the beginning of the year to de—
lineate roles and “discuss mutual
expectations."

Orientation of relationships in
order to establish a community of
the counselors » Sh's, RA’s, and
Deans W is the most important goal
for next year’s program, the Wright,
man’s feel Prudence calls it “staff
unity" and says that this unity will
take the place of rules or structures.

For the this there are basically
three problems, First, the SIX Ra's
interviewed by the sol! generally
feel that the biggest problem with the
job is its loneliness which results
from having a peer group of only
seven people in the community, The
limbo of neither a student nor a
faculty member is clearly felt. The
administration is attempting to solve
this problem by requiring the RA's
next year to work in an area outside
the hall, The Career Services 0(-
five, Housing Office, Revolving
Door, Chaplain’s Office, Draft Counr
seling Center, and the Dean’s Office
are some of the areas in which
they will be involved.

The second major problem is that
since the work of the RA is in the
hall, they knew very little about the
academic situation at Grinnell, and
this, commented Allen Schwab, RA
[or North and South Younker, makes
academic counseling very difficult.

“LINDSAY'S LAST wonus. You
call the newspapers, / I'll buy
the bier; / Tell them the sub
lering / Wasn't savers. / Doc.
tors expected he’d / Linger till
lune, / But it‘s a blessing he /
Passed on so soon. / Tighten
the winding sheet; / Open the
Crypt, / Something was ter-
ribly / Wrong
w i I h t h e
scripr./"

for a he. may at
NATIONAL its.
VIEW, write: Dept,
u, too r. as smut,
N. r, mold.

The Scarlet and Black

Margit 31, 1972 3

Reflections 0n Eight Years

by Marty Iker

In the fall of 1964, a bright young
man fresh from the Graduate School
of English at the University of Ro-
chester arrived on the Grinnell came
pus to assume his duties as a mem-
her of the English faculty. Now,
eight years later, Edward E. Foster
is chairman of the department but
is still relatively, unknown to stun
dents outside of the department.
His leave-of—absence last year and
his subdued nature have probably
contributed to this Semi-obscurity.
In speaking with Mr. Foster, iiound
him to be a very warm, interesting
and highly dedicated man with quite
a hit to say.

Grinnell has changed considerably
in the past eight years, according to
Chairman Foster, and he cites his
particular experiences in the
English department as a case in
point. ”When I first came here in
1964, fresh out of grad. school, i
taught English 349 (“Medieval
Lit") and was greatly impressed
by the quality of the English stuv
dents here. Not only did they read
the primary materials thoroughly,
but they also read most of the se-
condary material, and not passive-
ly but with a very critical eye. 1
later found out that these fourteen
people were the most outstanding
English majors in the school. but
over all, in those days, the study
of literature seemed to be treated
more seriously by the student than
it is now.”

“About two or three years ago,
things hit a low-point. Students
weren’t reading enough--even the
daily assignments seemed too much
to askwand therefore there wasn’t
anything to discuss. However, this
year, after returning from leave,
I’ve noted quite an upswing. Peo~
ple are interested in being students
again, and students are more in-
terested in being English majors.
This is shown in the greater 5th
dent concern with curriculum and
the initiation of literary projects
such as “Brevity” (the weekly Eng-

It is also difficult for them to find
out about campus activities. In ad»
dition, living in the dorm tends to
hide the RA, and his counseling work
is usually done on a one-to-one,
confidential basis. As a result, the
amount of good work done by an RA
is unknown by most students and
other staff. The administration plans
to give the RA more exposure next
year through the outside program.

A third problem is that the RA'S
all have master's degrees, and most
feel they have latent talent that is
being wasted.

Dean Kimbo feels that the program
is on the [right track and cites the
initiation of similar programs at
other small colleges (Carleton and
Cornell). Because of the amount of
work that goes into the program --
much done by Kimbo himself -- Kim-
bo is understandably sensitive to
criticism of the program. Kimbo
believes that most student criticism
unfairly centers around particular
individuals who have not worked out
in the past. He urges that students
not negatively stereotype the whole
system on this basis, just as they
would not condemn an entire depart»
ment If one faculty member did not
work out well.

Responding to criticism of the env
tire program’s validity, Tederman
acknowledged the right of the Exev
cutive Council to investigate, but, he
said, “I tend to fear a possible
attitude that we don’t give a damn
about our students once they leave
the classroom . . . andthai academic
growth is the only kind of growth
we're concerned about.”

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lish department newsletter, pub.
lished by majors), Student-faculty
relationships have improved and
there’s a great feeling of co-operae
tionnthe feeling that we‘re all in
this together. Give-and-take bee
tween the two groups has increased.
There must be some of this “anta-
gonism" or the laculty would be
doing something wrong.”

Edward Foster is also a writer,
particularly concerned with analy~
zation and annotation. At present,
he’s working on two separate pron
jects; the first is an edition of a
14th Century metrical romance (a
long verse narrative of which only
one edition exists, itself containing
many errors. An essay to be in-
cluded in the project has been com-
pleted but the actual work on the
poem is stlll going on. This project
came about as a result of a student
independent about three years ago
which stemmed from the student's
desire to gain experience in editing,
She is presently attending grad.
school at Harvard and their colla-
boration is done by mailing the man-
uscripts back and forth.

While on leave last year, the sec-
ond project was undertaken; an analr
ysis of contemporary replies to
“The Hind and the Panther," a poem
written by John Dryden (Poet Laura
eate of England, “570-89) after his
conversion to Catholicism. This
summer, Foster hopes to go to Eng
land in order to look at eight replies
which can be found nowhere else.

Foster's literary interests center
on Medieval and 18th Century writ-
ings, “I probably read less con-
temporary literature than people
outside of my field, such as scien-
tists, and when I do read some, it’s
not usually done with as critical an
eye as my other readings. You might
say that l have old»fashioned tastes.
but I love to read Victorian novels.
I like the way you feel in the com—
pany of those wonderful narrators,
like Eliot,"

Recent curriculum changes have
created a great degree of flexibilr
ity within the department, "possibly
a little “too much“ flexibility,” but

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he adds that a proposal to order or
provide a “capstone” for the major
is in the process right now. At pre-
sent, it is pOSSIble to take courses
which Vary so widely that it is very
hard to tie them all together, For
this purpose, Chairman Foster sees
the need to reinstitute the senior
seminar, which was discontinued a
few years ago, “to provide some
synthetic treatment of subject mat-
ter in the senior yearvrwe hope to
have this done by next year."

As I left the office and stopped to
button my jacket, 1 saw a figure
flash past me, possibly on the way
to a class or to work on one of his
projects, but he stopped to hold the
door for me.‘ it was Mr. Foster.
This time, I knew who he was.

Student Arrested
In An Theft Case

One Grinnell student has recently
been arrested and charged with re-
ceiVlng stolen property following the
discovery in his apartment of one of
the art works stolen from the college
campus last semester.

Senior Phil Becchettl, who lives at
1102 Broad Street, was arrested on
March lo by crinnell police. Other
arrests may be made in the case,
Police Chief Bill Peters told the
sol; Wednesday. '

The art work, a painting by Jannis
Spyropoulos valued at about cm,
was reported missing from the foyer
of Carnegie Hall on November 5. The
college’s insurance comapny even~
tually paid a claim for $220 to cover
the loss. Thc;painting is now hang,
ing in Chief Peter's office, where
it is being held as evidence,

Becchetti was released on slooo
bond alter beinfcharged and was
allowed to leave Grinnell during
the vacation. I ' -

Peters would not reveal the source
of the Information that led to dis»
covery by police of the painting. N0

_dateJ1as been chosen for the prelimin,

nary hearing.

annu.

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