March 17, 2006 - News

LC may allow gov. to spy on you
Faculty get an overdue pay raise
by Matt Savage

The Faculty Budget Committee recommended and the Board of Trustees approved a 6% faculty salary raise last month to ensure the retention of Lewis & Clark College’s current professors and the hiring of new, high-quality faculty members.

The Committee determined that a raise was needed because current faculty salaries are in the bottom quartile of “comparable schools”.

“There were many faculty committees before ex-President Mooney was President,” said Faculty Budget Committee Chair and Economics Professor Martin Hart-Lansberg, “But President Mooney dissolved many faculty committees in order to acheive greater adminstrative control”. As a result, there was no uniform budget policy during Mr. Mooney’s tenure. Salaries for professors fluctuated year to year, often barely above the consumer price index, or CPI.

But last year the Faculty Budget Committee was reinstated, in order to give budgetary advice on a range of finiancial issues, including salaries, building costs, and student aid to the administration. The committee has five voting faculty members, and to two ex-oficio, or non-voting members. They are Denis Ransmeier, Vice President for Business & Finance/Treasurer, and Julio de Paula, Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences., who make reccomendations to the Dean and the President of the College.

There is a complicated but scientific process for determining what constitutes a comparable institution to Lewis & Clark College. Jay Beaman, Director of Institutional Research, first developed a list of all private, co-ed, liberal arts colleges of between 1000-5000 undergraduate students in America. He then narrowed the list further to those schools with comparable majors and per student endowments. The result was a list of 36 schools that includes University of Puget Sound, Reed, Whitman, Willamette, and Occidental. For the salaries of full professors, associate professors, and assistant professors, LC was in the bottom quartile.

The adminstration seems to agree. Julio de Paula said, “The goal is to raise the academic quality on campus, and it’s not just on the back of students”. The administration is working to increase financial aide to current students to help deal with rising costs and to increase below average alumni giving. He also pointed out that student tutition was still lower than the median of the 36 “comparable schools”.

Dean de Paula also talked about some of the other costs that were increasing here at Lewis & Clark. He pointed out that energy costs have been rising year to year, leading to a need for energy conservation and capital investments, like LEED-certified buildings that use lower amounts of energy. Energy is an example of a cost that is increasing at a much higher rate that CPI inflation, which is why the cost of tutition is as well.

Health care is also a rising cost. The administration has been looking at ways to reduce costs in this area, while still ensuring good health-care for faculty and staff here on campus. The school recently stopped allowing EPO health-care plans, which gave faculty many health care options but also raised financial cost for the insitution. Instead, the school will be offering PPO and HMO (Kaiser) health-care plans.

Some faculty are not happy about the changes in health care plans by the administration.

“Personally, the deletion of the EPO plan is a disaster”, said Stepan Simek, Assistant Professor of Theatre, “the out-of-pocket expenses are exorbiant.” He explained that with two sons, it would be difficult for him to provide affordable, quality health care for his family under either of the new plans.

Joyce Beeny, an Adminstrative Secretary at the Theater Department, agreed.

“This is a drastic change in coverage, in out-of-pocket expenses annually,” she said. She added that she understood that health care costs were rising dramatically here and throughout the country, but wished that it didn’t have to result in such a financial burden for her and other faculty and staff here on campus.
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by Kevin Stark

In following with the regulations of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act--CALEA--Lewis & Clark College may start gearing its network for the access of government surveillance of outgoing emails by June 2007.

In a brief filed on Monday, February 27, the Federal Communications Commission clarified a set of guidelines necessary for colleges across the country to accomodate the expanding power of the CALEA. In doing this the FCC elevated some of the growing tension amongst the higher education community and created confusion that spread throughout students and professors at Lewis and Clark College.

The students and professors alike seemed to be under the impression that the “government” had demanded of Jane Atkinson, Provost, and Dan Terrio, Director of Information Technology, that LC install spy-ware to open up all email communication to surveillance by federal agencies. These impressions are founded in only a small semblance of truth, according to Dan Terrio.

After explaining how spyware cannot be used to monitor emails, Dan Terrio said, “I can say that neither I nor Jane Atkinson has been contacted. What we do have in front of us are the modifications to CALEA.” According to Educause, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology, the modifications are not only for Colleges and Universities, but all “facilities-based Internet service provider,” defined as “entities that provide transmission or switching over their own facilities between the end user and the Internet service provider.” In other words, the law applies to private computer networks that are also connected to the public internet.

Interestingly enough, law enforcement agencies will not gain any new powers to monitor student’s emails on campus through the expansion of CALEA. Educause states, “The right to legally intercept all forms of communication, including the Internet, and use the results as evidence in a court of law has existed since 1968. CALEA does not change the legal requirements to wiretap.”

Educause continues, “What CALEA does is require providers to engineer their systems to make wiretapping easier and less expensive [for Law Enforcement].” While Terrio was uncertain as to specifically how much it would cost for LC to re-engineer their system, the FCC’s clarification on February 27 will make it much less expensive than was originally thought.

What is the CALEA Act?

According to Educause, “the original act was passed in 1994 in response to a request for help from law enforcement. It requires providers of commercial voice services to engineer their networks in such a way as to assist law enforcement agencies in executing wiretap orders.” According to Terrio, in ’94 the act was strictly referred only to phone companies, and was called the Phone Tap Act. He went on to say that with a subpoena law enforcement agents could gain access to specific individual’s phone conversations.

Andrea Foster of the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote in an article that, “in the wake of September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the FCC decided to broaden the statute’s scope to allow for government surveillance of broadband networks and Internet-based telephone service, and, in a rule published last fall it ordered colleges and others to modify their information systems by June 2007.”

At this point LC was faced with the very expensive task of re-engineering its system in order to comply with CALEA. In a letter to the Vice President, Secretary and General Counsel David G. Ellis dated November 19, 2005 shortly after the FCC regulation was issued Harris stated, “because institutions like Lewis & Clark are concededly affected by the FCC’s Order, the College faces a substantial cost in bringing its own network into compliance within the 18-month timeframe specified in the Order.” The letter continues, “The FCC has left a couple of small doors open to exemptions that may be forthcoming, but there are other possible future developments that may lessen the impact to the College.” According to Terrio that is exactly what the latest clarification by the FCC is doing.

According to Educause, “Higher education institutions were exempt from CALEA compliance under the 1994 act because they were considered ‘private networks’. On August 5, 2005, the Federal Communications Commission, in response to a request by law enforcement, extended CALEA compliance to include facilities-base Internet service providers. This includes most campuses in their capacity of providing access to the public Internet.” Private networks are now defined as networks without access to the public Internet, according to the FCC.

Foster continues, “That decision prompted the American Council on Education and eight other higher-education groups, including Educause and Internet2, as well as two academic library groups, among others, to sue the FCC.” Foster then states that “some universities had estimated that to overhaul their networks, under the FCC’s original policy, would cost them each $9-million to $15-million.”

The reasons for the lawsuit are outlined by comments of the major concerns were submitted to the FCC in November of 2004. Educause summarizes them briefly in four points. The most important is that congress and not the FCC should decide to extend the authority of the CALEA act.

The FCC’s defense according to Educause is: “CALEA, as passed in 1994, contained the “Substantial Replacement Provision” clause. This provision states that the term “telecommunications carrier” could include any person or entity engaged in providing wire or electronic communication switching or transmission service to the extent that the FCC finds that such service is a replacement for a substantial portion of the local telephone exchange service and that it is in the public interest.”

Continuing, “Broadband Internet access substantially replaces dial-up service... Interconnected VoIP substantially replaces plain old telephone service. Therefore, broadband and interconnected VoIP providers are “telecommunications providers” for the purposes of CALEA.”

According to Terrio CALEA is “specific to the individual.” He goes on to say that the government has no desire in reading all of the emails that circulate about campus. Terrio explains in complying with CALEA the college would make it easier for the government, with a subpoena, to monitor electronic communications leaving the LC network.

Mark A. Luker, vice president at Educause in Foster’s article suggests that “colleges would have to spend much less to comply with CALEA. In the lawsuit, which is pending, Educause and other groups argued that if CALEA applied to colleges, then it should affect only “gateway” equipment that connects college networks to the internet.”

Luker goes on to say, “We’re somewhat optimistic,” and “We still really do need the definition of what compliance means.” Until this time Terrio can only estimate as to how much it will cost LC to comply with the regulations.
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Abortion, identity, tampons discussed at Gender Symposium
The Gender Symposium included a roundtable discussion on Non-Traditional Parenting and Gender Roles, held in Stamm.

by Rachel Schiff

The 25th annual Gender Symposium, themed Body Language, Sexualities, Identities, and Time, brought large enthused crowds from Lewis & Clark as well as the greater Portland Community. The crowd at Kate Borstein’s keynote address on Wednesday evening was so large that it created a fire-hazard in Council Chambers.

However, some hazards were created by Thursday morning’s snow. One of the scheduled presenters for Thursday afternoon’s Disability, Feminism, and Sexuality forum was unable to present because snow had been shoveled into the handicapped parking spaces. “A young presenter, she must have been only thirteen or fourteen, said that disability is a kind of diversity. Lewis & Clark, though very concerned with diversity, is not very accessible to disabled people. This is a big issue that we want people on campus to be aware of,” said symposium coordinator Kate Merrill (’06).

The roundtable discussion on abortion perspectives and pro-choice activism earlier in the afternoon also raised controversial issues. Despite its title, the crowd was not uniformly pro-choice. “As a moderator, I prepared questions, but didn’t need them. People were very involved. One participant expressed the opinion that life begins at conception. This sparked a heated discussion. People shared personal stories. Although the crowd was big, the discussion was very intimate,” reflected Merrill.

Not all of the events dealt with such heavy subjects. “I really liked the DIY tampon party,” exclaimed symposium artist Laine Shipley (’08), displaying her environmentally-friendly handiwork.

Kate Borstein’s keynote address paired the symposium’s serious themes with engaging humor. “Even when talking about issues that carried a great deal of weight, she was able to make light of them,” said Stephen Starrett (’07). “She was one of the most well-received speakers I’ve seen at Lewis & Clark. I was really impressed by how crowded Council Chambers was.”

Council Chambers filled again on Thursday evening for Estelle Freedman’s keynote address on historical perspectives of female sexuality. Using Kinsey’s 1953 book Female Sexual Behavior as a starting point, Freedman discussed the suppression, then sexualization of women in their quest for sexual self-determination.

Friday evening, Council Chambers filled yet again to welcome the Plasmic Stallions, a young punk band, and performer Diyaa aka Dred. “The punk-rock girls were my favorite part of the symposium,” said Chloé Bardake (’09). “I wasn’t planning on going in [to Council Chambers] just yet, but I heard this awesome cover of Tsunami Bomb’s Lemonade and ran in. They were good; they had gusto. It was awesome that a group so young would play for a college gender symposium.”

The charismatic Diyaa followed the Plasmic Stallions with a performance that encouraged the audience to embrace both male and female energies. The symposium was concluded with a dance party led by Diyaa.
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High schools withhold class rankings from universities

by Aron Phillips

On March 5, Alan Finder of the New York Times wrote a piece titled, “High Schools Avoid Class Ranking, Vexing Colleges,” addressing the issue of high schools’ withholding of class rank information from colleges during the admissions process. In the article, Finder notes that “thousands of high schools have simply stopped providing [class ranking] information, concluding it could harm the chances of their very good, but not best, students.”

As Lewis & Clark Dean of Admissions Mike Sexton points out, “Schools are not sending class ranks to protect the bottom half. But at the same time, if you finish in the bottom half at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, that school is harder than some colleges.”

This year, out of the 4,668 total applications received by Lewis & Clark, 3,003 of them specified no exact class rank. That’s 64%, a number much higher than the 42 percent accounted for by the University of Oregon, but still comparable to most small, liberal arts colleges like Kenyon College in Ohio. At Kenyon, Finder notes, “60 percent of the students who enrolled last fall as freshmen did not apply with a class ranking.”

So why the continuing trend?

“What first started at small independent schools with 30 students,” noted Sexton, “has progressed to big public schools with a large percentage of college bound seniors.”

According to a survey released last year by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, Finder said, nearly 40 percent of all high schools have either stopped ranking their students or have ceased giving that information to colleges – and it appears to be more of the latter.

Regardless of whether or not schools will announce the numbers, the rankings are still recorded.Unbeknownst to parents, schools are obligated to maintain class rankings in order to disclose them to mandated parties. When a student is applying to military academies, their application requires a class rank, and when a student is competing for a national merit scholarship, that too requires such information.

Also, regardless of this trend, every school still continues to have a valedictorian. Someone, despite the lack of publication, is keeping tabs and knows who is be No. 1 – and in some cases, No. 1 among 56.

“We have a school with 56 valedictorians,” notes Sexton. “Even if you’re No. 1, you’re still just in the Top 10 percent.”

Without rankings, college admissions offices are only left with SATs, GPAs, the student’s course load and difficulty, and extracurricular activities. However without a class ranking, some colleges are being forced to put more emphasis on an SAT score or other form of standardized testing.

For large state universities, such as Penn State University, that use a computer to do their first cut, they have one less variable to enter into the computer.
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Division deans may reorganize

by Tim Kelly

The faculty and administrators of Lewis & Clark College are currently considering a proposal to streamline the administrative duties and budgets of the Division Deans.

As it stands now, all the major departments of LC are clustered into three overarching divisions: Social Sciences, Arts & Humanities and Mathematical & Natural Sciences. The president of the college appoints a Dean to head each of these divisions. Currently, they are Robert Kugler, C. Gary Reiness and Harold Schleef.

Deans are a mix between faculty and mid-level administrator: they still teach, but generally have reduced course loads to allow time for their administrative duties. Each member of this triumvirate of Division Deans receives reports from the departments under their jurisdiction and has their own budget. Together with the Dean of the College, Julio de Paula, they form the powerful quartet known as the Academic Counsel. The AC makes many major decisions about the welfare of the college and resource allocation. They are responsible for designing many of the policies that are then tested by the faculty as a whole before being implemented.

While many faculty members value the current structure for the access it provides to familiars, there are some clear problems with it. The Division Deans are another level of administrative bureaucracy, and multiple Deans means multiple budgets, which can create conflict.

The suggested proposal would consolidate the Deans’ budgets into one budget, appoint an associate Dean to assist the Dean of the College, and reassign the Division Deans to elected rather than appointed adviser positions with much less administrative responsibility.

Details and professor opinions regarding ths matter can be found at: http://www.lclark.edu/faculty/faculty/facmin_051102.html.
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Beyond the Bubble

by Beka Feathers

The top international story this week is the death of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in his cell at the Hague. Milosevic was nearing the end of his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, a trial which has been delayed numerous times in the past few years due to the former leader’s health. Since his death was extremely suspicious to say the least, at least two autopsies have already been conducted on the body. One of them revealed that Milosevic had been taking a medicine that would have reduced the effectiveness of the medication he was also taking to lower his blood pressure. Curiously, this drug is also used to treat leprosy, a medical condition that Hague doctors are fairly certain Milosevic did not have.

Iraq continued its full-speed descent into chaos this week, exploding in sectarian violence across the embattled country. The situation was particularly bad in Baghdad, where vigilante Sunni and Shiite mobs attacked members of the opposite sect in many neighborhoods.

In domestic news, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald took a break from hunting Plamegate perpetrators this week to prosecute a different kind of perp. The U.S. Department of Justice charged 27 people from the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia with trafficking in child pornography over the Internet. The accused were all members of a site which provided live videos of child molestation, at least one of which involved a child under the age of 18 months. At last, a Department of Justice investigation which is likely to result in a trial, rather than claims of executive privilege.

Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold (D) failed to get any reaction from his fellow senators this week when he proposed that Congress officially censure the President. This might have been because a censure would have be about as effective as putting a toddler in time-out, but it didn’t stop Rush Limbaugh and other far-right talking heads from rallying their supporters as though Armageddon were coming and Feingold was the Antichrist himself.

Release of the Playstation 3 has been delayed six months, due to technical difficulties. Apparently, Sony is having difficulty getting the machine’s components to talk to each other, raising concerns about communication in the entire Playstation-component relationship. It looks like all those rabid video games fans will be forced to struggle through the next half-year with only the 300,000 currently available video game systems to help them through the long dark winter that is the wait for the next minutely-altered method of wasting ridiculous quantities of time.

Republicans are reeling from a public snub by Jessica Simpson, who turned down an offer to meet with the President at a fundraising party while she was in Washington this week publicizing her charity, Operation Smile, which raises money to provide plastic surgery to children overseas. Perhaps Simpson felt Bush didn’t have enough clout with the facially-deformed child demographic, or perhaps she didn’t recognize his name. Regardless, the Republic Party is having trouble distinguishing between Simpson and the other do-gooder celebrities out there.
“It’s never been a problem for Bono,” said NRCC chairman Carl Forti.
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Campus Quote of the Week:

“I don’t want to deal with emotions, in real life or in this class.”
- Stepan Simek