Miami Hurricane, January 31, 1992

              EASING THE PAIN
Dr. Danny Armstrong, a pediatric psychologist at the University of Miami School of Medicine, counsels children suffering from leukemia, cancer and sickle cell disease.
■ Accent — page 5
PAYING THE BILLS
Provost Luis Glaser responds to a Hurricane editorial asking the administration to explain the reasoning behind next year's 6.9 percent tuition increase.
■ Opinion — page 4
n
NEWSBRIEFS
Saturday mail to resume
According to Student Government President Irwin K,nj, Department of Residence Halls Director Robert Redu k has approved several requests made by SG to improve the residential colleges.
These included:
■	The use of three-way calling from campus phones "within a week.”
■	Library book drops would be installed in the residence halls.
■	The Saturday distribution of mail will resume Feb. 15.
According to Raij, Redick approved the improvements during a meeting on Jan. 24. Raij said he and David Diamond, SG cabinet member, proposed the
changes to Redick.
The library book drops are still in the planning stag's. There is no word on when they will become available.
Redii k could not be reached for comment.
Telephone system upgraded
Due to last semester's telephone upgrade, two new icatun were added to the University of Miami sys-
According to Ruben Lopez, director of Computer and Network Information Resources, a call return ipphcation and an audible message notification mode aave lieen supplemented to UM's telecommunications.
The "'last number dialed” feature is currently working on all users of University telephones. It allows the user to redial the last internal or external number by
dialing *9.
Voice Mail users who do not have a digital telephone have the capability to audibly hear their messages. When new messages are in the mail box, the user can lift their handset and listen for a stutter tone.
To activate the audible message notification mode, users must fill out a short application, which can be picked up in the Telecommunications Department, located in the Centrex Building.
— PAMELA WILFINGER
TODAY’S FORECAST
MOSTLY CLOUDY
and morning fog
HIGH: 77 LOW: 57
Source. National Weathei Service
The following are five of the top 10 colleges that received grants from Japanes companies between 1986-1991	—
SOURCE Center for Public Integrity
HIRAM HENRIQUE2 / Graphic Artist
TIMBER!
JAMES GIBSON/ Assistant Photo Editor
AND IT ALL CAME TUMBLING DOWN ... : The destruction of the married student apartment buildings began last week. The buildings, located on Dickinson Drive, are being leveled to make room for a new parking lot.
UM, community board created
By DEBORAH L MOSKOWITZ
Assistant News Editor
The Coral Gables City Commission passed an ordinance Tuesday creating the City of Coral Gables/University of Miami Community Relations Committee. Six representatives from Coral Gables and five from UM, including two students, will be on the committee.
“The committee is designed to provide a forum so the University will have better communication with the surrounding neighborhood instead of waiting for zoning meetings every five years,” David Lie-berntan, senior vice president of the University, said.
Representing the University are: William Butler, vice president for Student Affairs: Christopher Dudley, executive assistant to the president; Eric Schoentaker, director of
Public Safety; Irwin Raij, Student Government president; and Christopher Olive, Interfraternity Council president.
Each commissioner will choose one person who lives near UM to sit on the committee, and City Manager Jack Eads will pick the sixth one. The committee should be chosen at the next commission meeting on Feb. 11 and the group should start meeting in March, according to Coral Gables Mayor George Corrigan.
“I’m pleased that there is this new vehicle for communication with our friends and neighbors,” UM President Edward T, Fixite II said. “It's one more step to implement the Master Plan.”
Jim Barker, vice mayor of Coral Gables, said he helped the motion allowing students to be repre-
sented on the committee. Butler agreed it was a gixrd idea.
“I thought we’d miss an opportunity to involve students,” Barker said. "We need to give the students a chance to defend themselves.”
“The students are citizens of Coral Gables and need to be represented on this committee,” Butler said. "I'm extremely pleased our students will be brought in to this partnership arrangement with our neighbors and the University itself."
The committee will meet monthly except during the summer. The actions of the meetings will be recorded and submitted to the City Commission, Butler said.
“Instead of problems being dealt with after the fact, we can address them before they become problems to all parties," Butler said.
Committee: Graduate School to be dissolved
By FERNANDO BATTAGLIA
Associate News Editor
An ad hoc committee of the Faculty Senate Council sent a memorandum to members of the senate last October stating that the Graduate School at the University of Miami had been abolished. The memorandum created a good deal of controversy among members of the senate and the faculty of the Graduate School.
But, according to William Whelan, chairman of Faculty Senate, the Senate is not taking a position on the issue.
"This is absolutely a numb issue ... It's a non-event. Nobody’s made this recommendation. They only got a report, a very preliminary report.” Whelan said. “The concerns being expressed are really groundless and no position has been taken. We're not trying to close the Graduate School.”
Nevertheless, the committee’s proposal upset a large number of faculty and students involved with the Graduate School, The committee that sent the memorandum was formed by the Faculty Senate to determine the future of the Graduate School.
Paul Sugrue, acting dean of the Graduate School, wrote a memorandum to the Faculty Senate Council expressing the feelings of the Graduate Council, which oversees the Graduate School. The memorandum called for the retention of the Graduate School.
"The Graduate Council recommended |on Wednesday) that the Graduate School not be dissolved. It recommended that the Graduate School should be retained if not strengthened," Ernie Varela, vice president of the Graduate Student Association (GSA)
Whelan said he did not want to anyone to be concerned over a ‘‘numb’’ issue, and tried to halt the release of Sugrue’s memorandum to the Senate. Whelan said protests could create problems for the Faculty Senate.
“When I knew the memorandum was going out, 1 sent a strong letter of protest to the dean of the Graduate School )Sugrue|," Whelan said. “We have a lot of problems, real problems, we have to deal with.”
According to Manny Tejeda, president of GSA and Varela, the idea of doing away with the Graduate School has been around for some time.
According to Tejeda, the powers of the Graduate School have been diminished over the past few years.
In 1986 the administration passed the power to admit graduate students into graduate programs from the Graduate School to the individual departments. A couple of years ago, the ability to provide certain grants was also taken away from the Graduate School
“The vice provost in charge of research and sponsor programs IRobert Rubin) took over this position. And there were further dissections,” Tejeda said. "It’s been a slow cutting away of the Graduate School over the past five or six years.”
Tejeda said it's possible that these cuts on the power of the Graduate School are attempt by the administration to get rid of it.
"It’s unknown where the original impetus came from for the dissolution of the Graduate School, hut I think it was administrators," Tejeda said. "It's been a calculated plan. Whether1 it’s been a conscious or unconscious calculation. 1 don’t know, but it's very suspicious."
The future of the Graduate School remains undecided. If Tejeda's and Varela’s suspicions are true, the matter may end up being solved in the Office of the President of UM.
“There is a question whether the Faculty Senate can do it labolish the Graduate School| by itself," Varela said.
The Graduate Council's response to the report of the ad hoc committee asked for a strengthening of the Graduate School.
"The way to strengthen it is to give it is to give it control of grants or to recentralize. decentralization is not necessarily good because departments can still pick the graduate students," Tejeda said.
Tejeda added that there is, "a sense by many students that there be a central authority and there isn’t one. The leadership isn’t as strong as Pam Ferguson’s, who had only one job."
Pam Ferguson stepped down from her post as dean of the Graduate School in June of last year. Paul Sugrue, the acting dean of the Graduate School, is also the senior vice provost at UM. Sugrue was not able to be reached for comment.
Melino goes to Babson U.
By LAURIE POWELL
Staff Writer
Karen Melino, Student Development and orientation director since 1989, left her position at the University of Miami Tuesday.
She will be the assistant dean of students at Babson College in Wesley, Mass,
In addition, Melino plans on finishing her doctorate at Babson.
Melino has been given credit for many contributions to student life at UM since she started at the University as a resident coordinator for Hecht Residential College in 1986.
Instrumental in expanding the UM leadership program, Melino helped to increase the size of the program to six classes per semes-
ter within two years.
“For me, one of the things I'm really pleased with is the leadership program," Melino said. Her pet project was the introduction of advanced leadership classes.
K.C. White, director of Commuter Student Aifairs, will teach the beginning leadership classes and Rosa Verdeja, Community Development coordinator, will teach the advanced classes.
Melino said she also worked to change the orientation program.
"Orientation used to focus on resident students who live on campus,” Melino said. "Now, that program has a section geared for commuter, transfer and international students as well. The program now encompasses the entire student body.”
Janette Hermida will control the student staffing portion of orientation. The new Student Development director and replacements for Melino’s other three positions will
See pape 2/ MELINO
Melino
Glaser explains tuition hike
By STEVE SABO
Stall Writer
Many important questions about tuition increases remained unanswered after a lengthy presentation given by Luis Glaser, University of Miami executive vice president and provost, before the Student Government Senate.
Glaser spoke at Wednesday’s meeting about tuition increases for the upcoming year.
The object of the tuition increase is to make the University the most efficient at the lowest cost to the student, Glaser said.
Glaser described how the tuition increase was brought down from an initially-proposed 8.49 percent increase to the current rate of 6.9 percent. He then gave general information on the University’s general funding and a basic breakdown on how tuition is spent.
Sixty-one percent of the undergraduate tuition will go to compensation for faculty and staff, including a 4 percent salary increase and new health benefits, said Glaser. Thirty percent goes to financial
aid and the final 9 percent composes "everything else."
Better accessibility for the disabled, major computer upgrades, renovations in residence halls and cafeterias and additions to the University Center and the Otto G. Richter Library are improvements being offered with the tuition increase, Glaser said.
"I'm as sensitive as anyone about increases in tuition and room and board. Thai pul.-, pressure on a person’s financial situation,” Glaser said.
Many questions about specific uses of the increase were left unanswered.
"The specifics about the increase involve i lot of intangibles which I cannot deliver for you," Glaser said.
"His presentation was interesting, and it was nice of him to address Student Gov ernment,” Mike Falk, sophomore sena tor, said. "However, I was disappotnled at the way he drew away from certain important topics, going around them and not hit ting them on the head, I think he needs to fill in the blanks by providing more specific information."

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