66
Volume XCI Number 6^
(MHw trojan
University of Southern California
Wednesday. December 9. 1981
By Mitchell Rossi
Staff Writer
As the date to begin construction on the Olympic pool on the Intramural Field comes closer, the friction between the students and the administration increases.
The lack of grass fields and parks, or greens pace as it is called, at the university is a major concern expressed by students. The question of why the university does not build on its off-campus land is be-gining to be raised.
“We must and should keep in mind that the Olympic pool is really a part of the University Center development,” said Anthony Lazzaro, vice president of business affairs. “When you recognize that the plans call for building over the Olympic pool which means
putting the first (University Center) building on that site.”
“Then you say where do you want the University Center to be. Well, you don’t want it to be off campus,” Lazzaro said.
The Intramural Field, which is used for various sports and other activities, will only lose 40 percent of its area to the development, Lazarro said. In addition, the half block of buildings directly behind Heritage Hall, between the physical plant and Cromwell field, will be removed and turned into greenspace.
“The athletic fields which are now not used for intramural activities will become available by arrangement with the athletic department and through scheduling. This is all part of the plan,” the vice president said.
The development of the university’s off-campus land is 'imited by the relationship the university tries to hold with the surrounding neighborhood.
“Our neighbors already believe that the university has taken too much land and gob-
bled up family dwellings,” President James H. Zumberge said. “We are very sensitive to our neighbors. We made an agreement with the neighborhood to provide some low-in-come family housing to replace those we have taken away. Some of the land on Vermont (Avenue) is designed to fulfill this promise.”
The plans for the property, on the corner of Vermont Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard, which Zumberge referred to, are still being discussed. “One of the possibilities .. . (is) related to the planning of a possible tech (technology) park,” Lazarro said.
Although the university will own the land underneath the park, it will not be involved in running the light-industrial and research facilities, and low-income housing to be included in the park.
A final report on what the university will develop on the Vermont Avenue property is expected in five or six months, the vice president said.
This is the final issue of the Daily Trojan under the editorship of James Grant. The DT will resume publication Jan. 12, 1982 under the editorship of Steve Padilla.
Tuition to rise next fall, president says
By Alan Grossman
Staff Writer
President James H. Zumberge confirmed to students Tuesday a tuition increase will be forthcoming next fall and that tuition makes up only 40 percent of the operating budget.
Zumberge addressed students at an informal dinner in Elizabeth Von KleinSmid residence hall. The request for the dinner was made by students currently living in university housing. The president answered various questions about the campus. However, most of the students’ queries concerned tuition increases and administrative dependence on the tuition funds.
The president was asked what effect the protest sponsored by the Student Senate has had on policy making decisions.
“I talked with Andrew Littlefair, chairman of Stu-
dent Senate, about the matter and he, along with another senator met with Dr. (Jon) Strauss,” Zumberge said.
He then described how tuition costs are determined and why “there will be an increase” as a result of inflation.
“This past weekend I met with all of the senior vice presidents in a 16-hour meeting to decide what our needs are for next year. Tuition will account for 40 percent of the university budget, while another 11 percent will come from residence halls and dining rooms. Out of a $1 million a day budget, students pay for a little more than half,” Zumberge said.
The president continued by stating that the university considers utilities a major part of the budget because of the immense heat-(Continued on page 15)
Professor challenges dismissal from university
Tenure denied despite backing from 2 deans, faculty members
Olympic pool site raises question
He has been described by university administrators and colleagues as controversial, intolerant, intimidating, moody, a free spirit, a fiery professor, a highly unconventional faculty member and. not least, the kind of classroom teacher that too many students say they cannot find on this campus.
Before he was fired in June, Gunner Huettich, a native of what is now East Germany, was an assistant professor and the only specialist in East German literature in the German Department.
The department now offers only West German courses taught by West German professors.
Huettich, a 35-year-old surfer and skateboard enthusiast, did not conform to the image of his more conventional colleagues in the department. Because he frequently challenged certain departmental practices and policies, Huettich was often ostracized by his peers and superiors during business-oriented and social events.
When Huettich became eligible for tenure, the disdain held for him became apparent in his colleagues’ evaluation of his performance. In a memo from Malone, then dean of Humanities, to the President’s Advisory Committee on Promotions and Tenure, he commented: “Their presentation of his qualifications reflects their efforts to deal as dispassionately with his qualifications as possible. As a consequence, the fire that drives Huettich both as a teacher and a scholar seems dampened in the department’s presentation.”
According to a source acquainted with the German Department, Cornelius Schnauber, chairman of the department, went so far as to ask professors to write negative recommendations for Huet-tich’s tenure.
“Around March (of 1979), a professor from the German Department called me,” the source said. “She was drunk and she was sick. She had gotten an order from the chairman to write a letter to sack Gunner.
“She went on talking for hours and could not make up her mind. She felt obligated to write the letter. Everyone
on the faculty was asked to write a letter to deny Huettich tenure.”
Throughout the process of Huettich’s tenure consideration, questions arose as to whether these negative recommendations influenced the decision to deny the assistant professor tenure. Based on his belief that the decision was founded on a “subjective, arbitrary and non-re-viewable judgment” rather than on the procedures set forth by the Faculty Handbook, Huettich is preparing a suit against the university.
Discrepancies first became apparent following a meeting of the Humanities Division Personnel Committee on March 19, 1979, in which the recommendation from the German Department was discussed. In a letter to Malone, David Wiesen, chairman of the committee and the Classics Department, wrote that the recommendation of the German Department was regarded as “unusually weak, indeed so weak as to raise the question whether it was a positive recommendaton at all.”
Two tenured members of the department voted: Rudolf Hirschmann, then a professor on extended leave, and Schnauber. Both recommendations were examined by the committee. Hirschmann’s letter, Wiesen said, was "carefully balanced” and argued that although Huettich deserved tenure on the basis of his publications, “other aspects of his career at USC raised serious doubts about his teaching and about his good sense as well." Hirschmann voted no.
Schnauber’s recommendation, on the other hand, “seemed to be a masterly study in ambiguity,” Wiesen stated.
“Professor Schnauber wrote, for instance, that Dr. Huettich ‘has the ability ... to make his literature classes interesting and informative.' This raised the question whether he actually does so or not,” Wiesen wrote. “Then again, ‘Dr. Huettich has demonstrated that his teaching can be just as outstanding and challenging at the graduate level.’ This is of course not the same as saying that it is just as outstanding.
(Continued on page 2)
By John Lamb
City Editor
and Darren Leon
Assistant City Editor
Although Dr. Huettich is controversial, the quality of his intelligence, the nature of his scholarship and the challenging nature of his teaching are of precisely the kind that should be the focus of academic controversy .... His
drive and intensity may prove uncomfortable to some, but a university that seeks comfortable intellectual conditions is not worthy of the name.
—	portion of promotion recommendation written by David Malone, former dean of Humanities, and co-signed by John Mar-burger, former dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
LAWSUIT? — Gunner Huettich was fired June 30, 1981.
GREENSPACE TO BE ADDED