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trojan
Volume LXXVI, Number 31
University of Southern California
Monday, March 26, 1979
West looks East
Administrative mishandling threatens center's future
By Sean Dunnahoo
'A' he controversy surrounding the adoption of a Middle East Center at the university could have been avoided had the various academic constituencies been consulted before the Board of Trustees approved the center in October 1978.
This sentiment has been expressed by many people closely tied to the university such as Kenneth Owler Smith, associate director of the School of Journalism. The method used to formulate the idea for the center was the single biggest mistake that destroyed the concept of the center, Smith said.
The idea for the center was first formed last year during an unpublicized meeting in Santa Barbara between President John R. Hubbard, Zohrab Kaprielian, executive vice-president, J. Robert Fluor, chairman of Fluor Corp. and chairman of the Board of Trustees, and Willard Beling, head of the Middle East-North Africa program of the School of International Relations and later appointed director of the center.
“One man’s good idea was destroyed because of the method in which the center concept was put together," Smith said. “Since the faculty wasn't asked about the center, they responded by not liking it. They tossed out standard university procedure, and the faculty decided they wouldn't stand for it," he said.
Sean Dunnahoo, a Daily Trojan staff writer, is a sophomore in journalism.
Smith felt the original idea was a good one but by planning the center in secrecv and suddenly presenting the concept to the university, and saying “this is the way things are going to be," the whole idea was harmed, and may even have been destroyed.
Sources have said now that the center has met with such a negative reaction, no one will touch it with a twenty-foot pole. This could mean a severe lack of funding.
^Jeoigetown University and Harvard University have established centers similar to the Middle East Center. Controversy did not surround
them because the establishment of the two centers came about in a way sanctioned by each of the two universities.
Harvard has never had any problem with its center that was established in 1934, said Dennis S. Skiotis, director of Harvard's center on Middle Eastern studies.
Harvard's procedures for accepting endowments and setting up chairs have been well established and
have always been followed. Consequently, there have been no controversies surrounding the funding for the center, Skiotis said.
The Center for Arab Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. was set up four years ago through the university administration as a section of Georgetown's College of Foreign Service.
Because Georgetown is not a rich university, it asked each of the Arab governments if they would make donations toward the center, said Michael Hudson director of the center.
Most of the governments favored the idea because they felt there was a need for more studies on Arab culture.
.Al few objections came from Jewish organizations because the funding for the center came from the Arab governments, but Hudson doesn't feel there has been a major controversy and most of the apprehension has been removed with time.
The controversy was minimal, however, because Georgetown University made it clear it would be the one handling the center and the plans for the funding of the center were brought out into the open at the start, Smith said.
If USC had done the same instead of making the operation seem covert by formulating it in apparent secrecy the idea for the center would have been more widely accepted, he said.
Harvard had no controversy at all, despite the sensitive situation in the Middle East, because it stuck to the established university procedure.
The ad hoc committee on academic units is working to establish guidelines to insure that new units such as a Middle East Center could not be set up without the involvement of the academic constituencies at the university, said John LeBlanc, president of the Faculty Senate.
The committee, chaired by Donald J. Lewis, a professor of psychology, has worked on formulating
the procedures to be followed by future units. The group is expected to complete its work in the near future, LeBlanc said.
S mith felt the second major problem with the center was that the university administration seemed to totally ignore the feelings of everyone concerned. This was an offshoot of the first problem
—	the method used by the administration to set up the center.
Once the administrators had gone ahead and planned the concept without consulting the rest of the university constituencies, they started planning the center without listening to the perspectives and opinions of the those who would be concerned with the center, he said.
The universitv is part of a large community, and Smith felt that at the beginning of the controversy, the administration seemed to think that the university could put up a wall around the school and ignore the concerns of those on the outside.
The idea for the center could be the purest intent in the world, but on the outside, it doesn't look that way because of the two major errors made by the administration, he said.
The President's Advisory Council committee on the Middle East Center could possibly get the plan for the center to work, but with something that has been so controversial, it would be difficult, Smith said.
I	he committee, chaired by Carl Q. Christol, a professor of political science, has been working on formulating proposals on the center's operational and academic standards. The proposals will be presented to Hubbard.
Christol said that so far, there have been four points that the entire committee has agreed upon.
The committee has reaffirmed that a center or a program on Middle Eastern Studies should be set up. This center or program should conform to the tenets of academic integrity, should be politically neutral and there should be a source of stable and regular funding for the program.
The committee has held interviews with university administrators and members of the community in an attempt to get feedback and opinions about the proposed center.
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