Balfour selected student affairs dean
By Diane Wengler Kansan Staff Reporter
KU's new dean of student affairs thinks students have something to say and that he should listen to them.
Dr. William M. Balfour, professor of comparative biochemistry and physiology at KU, was appointed to the post Saturday by the Board of Regents.
Effective Feb, 1, Balfour will become Wescoe's principal staff officer concerned with non-academic activities of students.
His office will coordinate the functions of the offices of the dean of men, dean of women, dean of foreign students, admissions, student financial aid, housing, the Guidance Bureau, the Student Health Service and the Kansas Union.
"The University is fortunate in having available to fill this important position a person with the experience, temperament, and dedication of Dr. Balfour," Wescoe said.
Balfour will continue to do some teaching, and he will continue, temporarily, as director of Pearson College, one of the five Colleges Within the College.
The new dean of student affairs will assume leadership in an area of activity which has been without a coordinating officer since the retirement of L. C. Woodruff, former dean of students.
Balfour said his job would be a policy-making one which will mesh the activities in other areas. He said he will try to spot trends and get an overview of the University, making recommendations to the Chancellor.
Balfour said he hoves to work closely with student leaders to
work out problems before they become issues.
Balfour, who joined the KU faculty in 1957 as an assistant professor in the School of Medicine, has served as acting chairman of the department of comparative biochemistry and physiology.
Balfour has directed a series of in-service institutes in physiology for secondary school teachers of biology, and has been associate director of the science and mathematics camp for high-ability high school students. This camp is a division of the Midwestern Music and Art Camp held each summer at KU.
Balfour has been chairman of the College Biological Sciences Committee and of the KU advisory committee on human experimentation since its creation 18 months ago.
Born in Pasadena, Calif., and reared in Rochester, Minn., Balfour has B.S. and M.D. degrees from Minnesota University and an M.S. degree from the Mayo Graduate School.
From 1942 to 1945, Balfour served in the Army Medical Corps as a major in the South Pacific.
Balfour was a consultant at the Mayo Clinic and an instructor in the Mayo Graduate School before coming to KU in 1957.
Dr. Balfour and his wife, Oane,
have four children: James, 27;
Barbara, 25; Laurie, 18; and Wendy,
18.
Balfour is a member of several professional organizations in his field of specialization, as well as Sigma Xi and the New York Academy of Science. In Lawrence, he has served on the executive committee of the Lawrence Unitarian Fellowship and is founder and long-time director of its educational program.
DR. WILLIAM M. BALFOUR
SAGE requests salary increase
The financial status of graduate students who are assistant instructors may be slightly improved next year.
This would come as the result of efforts by the Student Association of Graduates in English (SAGE) and its chairman, Dave Holden, Winona, Minn., graduate student, who presented a 30-page report to Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe Friday describing what Holden calls a "crisis situation."
A main portion of the report outlined a need for a "substantial across-the-board increase in assistant instructors' salaries in the department of English."
According to Holden, Wescos said a five or six per cent increase in next year's salaries would be the highest amount possible provided the legislature allots such an increase in the total KU budget.
Holden said Wescoe offered to put Stouffer Place apartments on a priority basis for assistant instructors who are married.
Holden said that would amount to a $115 raise for the majority of assistant instructors who receive $2,300 annually. A $500 raise would be necessary for KU to match the compensation paid to assistant instructors at other Big Eight schools next year, he said.
He said about 40 per cent of the assistant instructors are married and few of them live in Stouffer Place now because of noise and other dissatisfactions with the apartments.
He anticipated that SAGE, at a meeting tonight, may vote to suggest all graduate students be put in the same building or buildings if the idea is satisfactory to SAGE members.
Wescoe promised to prepare a statement which will be discussed at the SAGE meeting.
Holden said Wescoe said the University was continuing to work on the SAGE request made in an October statement to Francis Heller, acting provost and dean of faculties, that the assistant instructors be exempt from an income tax on their salary. The report said the tax amounts to $211 of the $2,300 base salary.
George W. Swift, acting dean of the graduate school, said a department would have to require the assistantship as part of the degree before it was considered "part of the education" and thus tax free.
The voting faculty of the English department last Thursday voted to require every candidate for a graduate degree to teach.
See SAGE, page 3
78th Year, No.61
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY kansan
A student newspaper serving KU
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
Monday, December 18, 1967
Students offer encouragement
Abrams gains support
By Ted Bell Kansan Staff Reporter
Norman Abrams, assistant professor of design, is receiving support from students and faculty members in protesting the decision of his department's promotion committee to relieve him of his post next year.
Stettler said the committee had not been called to session especially for Abrams, but would review his case during a scheduled meeting. The AAUP normally will review dismissal cases;
Howard Stettler, professor of business administration and president of KU's chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), said Sunday the organization's committee on internal affairs will listen to Abrams present his case "sometime this week."
the action does not necessarily indicate AAUP support for Abrams.
Students continued to call Abrams throughout the weekend.
"The students have said they want to offer their congratulations, and have said they agree the design department needs someone to stand up and complain about the way it has been run—and this is what started the whole thing in the first place," Abrams said.
In a letter to the Kansan (see page 2), Fritz Reiber noted that Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe said in a letter to the Kansan:
The students are beginning to be joined by faculty members in their outspoken support for Abrams.
"A university, we agree, is a place dedicated to the promotion
of better understanding of thought through unfettered access to differing ideas. This University has always been prideful that it operates within this tradition."
Reiber, an associate professor of design, said this was a noble principle, "but one which seems not to be embraced by the design department." All he has noticed in $3^{1/2}$ years in the design department. Reiber said, is the department's "basic resistance to change and a denial of the possibility that the junior members of the faculty might have something of value to offer towards the growth and direction of the department."
Reiber also said Abrams is not alone in criticizing the design department.
SHAKE IT UP, JO JO, TWIST AND SHOUT
Kansas' scrambling Jo Jo White (15) sidestepped a Texas A & M player while chasing the loose ball in Saturday's 78-52 victory in the second game of the Sunflower Doubleheader at Manhattan.
The letter from Marjorie Whitney, chairman of the design department and chairman of the promotion committee, said the decision of the committee was unanimous to ask Abrams to "seek employment elsewhere."
And one of the faculty members named, Alexander Boyle, professor of design, did not vote. Boyle, contacted at his home in Lawrence, said he is on sabbatical leave and did not vote on any decisions to dismiss Abrams. If he had voted, Boyle said, it would have been to keep Abrams.
The names of the committee members were typed below. Two of the names were those of faculty members not on the committee; Abrams said "secretarial error" was blamed for the inclusion of the names.
The other committee members have remained silent.
Classes held on schedule
Classes will be held today, Tuesday and Wednesday as scheduled.
Francis Heller, dean of faculty and acting provost, said the rumor of cancellation of classes due to a flu outbreak was false.