The

r Scarlet
& Black

 

Trustees convene —

seem receptive to student concerns

”Maintaining their usual loWr
profile, but With a new emphasis on
Student Contact, the Board of
Trustees met this past weekend on
campus. Describing it as a
“meeting of high iniorming"
President Turner felt that many
points oi View were presented to
the Trustees for their con-
sideration, “totally uncensored”
from at least three different
directions‘the administration, the
iaculty, and the students.
A major concern of the Trustees
this recent meeting was the
oliege's commitment to al-
iirmative action, Urged by SGA to
publicly reiterate their support ior
affirmative action policies. Mrs.
ﬂuscksbaum, chairman of the
oard, promised to institute a
review of the 1570 statement by the
Trustees. FreSTdent Turner.

Nuclear energy

The tiity students, iaculty and
townspeople who showed up for the
debate on nuclear energy held in

North Lounge last Monday found

‘Eut that debates don't have to be

the dreary affairs that the

presidential candidates make
hem out to be. All that is needed is
o speakers such as Skip Laitner
d Dr. Paul Barcus who are
articulate, well-informed, and

willing to speak out and to

concurring with this review,
explained that “we want to go back
to our own records and see what
our postures have been and get a
totally new institutional deﬁnition .
particularly what the
procedures and processes are,
beyond a simple reaffirmation.
The Trustees are very concerned,
as all of us should be ” With a shift
irom his iormer position Turner
agrees that a written policy should
be formulated and a committee
chaired by Dean Eysenbach has
been set up for this purpose, Ruth
Montgomery's statement to the
Trustees, summarized below,
gives a more detailed outline of
this area of student concern
The new strategy oi ”lunch with
a Trustee” appears to have
resulted irom the increasing
demand ior student input in areas

challenge each other. Laitner.
speaking against nuclear energy,
is the energy consultant ior the
Iowa Public interest Research
Group. He inrmerly worked with a
Ralph Nader group opposing
nuclear energy. “Critical Mass,”
Barcus, the speaker in iavor oi
nuclear energy, is assistant dean
of the college of engineering and
professor of engineering at iowa
State University.

Dr. Paul Barcus, professor of engineering at ISU, claimed: “N0
American conserves anything unless they are forced to. . . When

the crisis comes , . . torgetthe environment

.rorget the danger." ~

by Mary Biamlt

pertinent to student lite. Ms.
Bucksbaum commented that
“student input is welcomed,
needed, and appropriate to student
life matters." But While many
students have looked to the
Trustees as the final authority in
the recent administrative
reorganizational decisions Ms.
Bucksbaum countered this belief.
“As irustees we are supposed to be
pretty much removed irom the
functioning of the College, The
Board operates as a policyrmaking
body. We hire the PFESIdent, set
broad policy, and look to the ode
ministration to Carry out this
policy, in practice the Board has
the ultimate responsibility to see
that the job is accomplished,”
With student concern focused on
the recent reorganization this topic
seemed to dominate most lunchr

Grinnell College
Grinnell, Iowa
10/22/76 Vol. 85, No. 7

time meetings with trustees. Host
students reported that many
trustees apparently felt that nhile
it was too early to judge the quality
of the dicision, the manner in
which it was handled and carried
out was believed to be poor.
President Turner inet first with
the Trustees. “I gave them a fairly
thorough explanation oi what had
happened twith regard to the
reorganization), where the con-
cerns were, and some in-
terpretation of why i thought these
things were or the degreee oi
concern that they were.” SGA,
representing the majority of the
student body, then met for ap
proximately two hours with the
Committee on Community Life.
What follows below are brief
summaries of their comments to
the Trustees Ruth Montgomery

spoke primarily to the issue of
affirmative action, Bob Handler
dealt with budgetary cons
siderations, and Matt Cohen are
ticulated some of the student
dilemmas regarding the White
Paper

in addressing the Trustee
Committee on Community Life we
first discussed What we considered
to be the community atmosphere or
distrust, stemming irom a series oi
decisions and proposals made by
the administration over the past
year it was emphasized that oiten
it was the style and tenor of the
decision making process that
alienated the community. but that
in the most recent decision
regarding the administrative
reorganization. students also felt

icontiniicii on page at

: the debate continues

b) Jim Stricltler

Throughout the debale. Laiiner
emphasized the need ior diiersiiy
of energy sources. He said he was
not so much against nuclear pow er
as he has in favor of solar energy
“Solar energy is a riable option
Unfortunately.l\‘hal has happened
in this country is the development
of economic and engineering
biases against solar energy."
Besides solar energy. Laitner often
mentioned the use of other forms of
energy such as bio-mass. ocean
thermal. and wind energy He
called tor a shift oi government
iundiiig away ironi nuclear,
saying. “unless we reverse nur
spending and iunding priorities,
solar energy will never see the
light oi day."

in his opening statement, Barcus
said, “We are using this stuff from
the ground (fossil fuels) at a
fantastic, unbelievable rate. i feel
that we have to use every possible
method, I don’t think we can avoid
any one. Conservation won’t help
much It is Very idealistic to talk
about it. No American conserves
anything unless they are forced to.
When the crisis comes, con-
servation will come.‘ Un-
fortunately, so will franlic con-
stuctiun of every known source of
power, dangerous or not. . forget
the environment . . . lorget the
danger.”

Laitner disagreed that ob-
servation would not help much,
citing examples oi places where
substantial energy savings have
been made Without sacrifice

liaitner also disagreed with the
heed to build nuclear power plants
to avoid a crisis, saying, “Nuclear
energy is inherently the most
dangerous energy technology we
have today,” Nuclear power is
dangerous, he said. not only
because of the radiation dangers,
but also because of the societal
costs. Because nuclear energy is so
complex, he said. many people feel
that the public will be remoited

irom decisionrmaking processes
iniolring the issue
After almost an hour and a hall
iol the Experts throumg around
liigures and sources. and
;challenglng their opponent's
; sources and interpretations. it
became clear lhal while both agree
on the need ior solar energy. they
have Yer} different sources of
information and interpretations of
those sources The nuclear issue,

according to moderator oi the
debate, Professor oi Biology Ken
Chi'istiansen, has been around for
thirty years, and will continue to be
around for some time. But for
Grinnell College and the
surrounding community, it is an
issue that is being brought to home
very quickly. Plans are being
made for the construction of a
nuclear power plant near Prairie
City, 35 miles west of Grinnell.

looms by Chit) tows

Skip Laitner, energy consultant to IPIRG asserted that “Nuclear
energy is inherently the most dangerous energy technology we

have today."

 

