'volume
^5^
LVI, Number 5
Serving the Mars Hill College Community Since 1926
Thursday, February 3, 1983
Faculty Cuts Necessary To
Maintain Financial Stability
spiled from Staff Reports
)Uf ' ^^8 enrollments over the last
*^*■8 and still further declines anti-
r'l
-1
"Q H •
®Putt‘ the next couple of years
ari; ® severe financial squeeze on
College.
on in
in
statement concerning the
last'^ '^^'^dition of the college was is-
President Bentley, and
' e talk ^ provided to THE HILLTOP.
iOu( at length with Dr. Bentley
i\Vfg. ® serious economic problems
'ie ai. school and what is being
lit! all,” he explained, ‘‘the
®Ps hq ^^asis should be that the ac-
^cing taken are intended to
and stabilize the college.”
the N®' Dt sketched out how the college
current situation:
Cars ago, he noted, 1450 stu-
md then
on with l2
le womeo
66-63. Can
•en Hefner sC ,Rtr^
on was choS«^ J the 1983 CADENZA are
Accepted. Categories are 2-
®P*ional art. orose. and do(
sam.
mes, Card"'^‘’j'*'fiae5"’“*ional art, prose, and poet-
re all averagnSlj 520 for first place, $10 sec-
le while $5 third place. Each
; and Lucas JK he accompanied by an entry
veil leads in q rn the Publications Area
e Wagner aP,(N, cg?/ Union. For more infor-
:h. Hough (j Pi. ^^^0 and ask for Margaret
ith 6 per j
It a record P
lost 50 a 1$$
and Josepl.a»jSLE"‘LI-TOP CONTEST
in A 18 resf “HiiiT ~ Nominations for Miss
; n St4n, l‘^c taken on Feb. 8-10 in the
^'lies for eligibility will
McFadden iQ Pick who you feel
Jacred Heart ,|;| looking women on cam-
lots with 6'^1'' 1^
for THE NEXT
Angela '^'^Jjiti'1% will be February 8. If
are also organization would like
ions to the ji ^l^y> send it to Box 1148 or
itics are not by ^ thg door of The Hilltop of-
ilayers. ^
dents were enrolled here; and, in addi
tion to the substantial income they
brought in through tuition and fees, the
college was receiving additional monies
from other sources. Although a nation
wide decline in college enrollments was
predicted. Dr. Bentley and his adminis
trative staff felt that Mars Hill’s enroll
ment could be stabilized by expanding
older programs and adding new ones.
That strategy proved unsuccessful as
Mars Hill’s enrollments slipped slightly
but steadily over the last four years to
the point where only 1186 students were
enrolled at the beginning of the current
school year.
‘‘If you’re geared up for 1450 stu
dents,” Dr. Bentley explained, ‘‘and all
indicators say that higher education is
going to experience at least a 19 percent
decline, then we need to start taking ac
tions to reduce our work force so as to
A good place to start the search for
summer job is in the annual directory
which lists 50,000 summer jobs through-
I out the United States: 1983 Summer Em
ployment Directory of the U.S., edited
by Barbara Kuroff (Writer’s Digest
Books; $8.95 paper).
On-the-job experience is almost a ne
cessity today in order to land a good job,
so look to the annual directory which
lists 16,000 temporary positions provid
ing a wide range of experience: 1983 In
ternships, edited by Colleen Cannon
(Writer’s Digest Books; $10.95, paper).
Sophomores, juniors and seniors cur
rently enrolled in a North Carolina col
lege or North Carolina residents attend
ing an out-of-state college have until
February 11 to apply for the Institute of
Government Summer Internship Pro
gram in state government.
Students will work 40 hours each week
in a responsible position in a state de
partment, participate in evening educa
tional seminars and be paid approxi
mately $150 per week.
Students interested in the program
should secure a brochure announcing
the program and a State of North Caro
lina application form from their college
or university placement office or local
Job Service office. For more informa
tion, contact the Hilltop office.
make certain our college does not get in
to serious trouble.”
The decline in enrollment for the cur
rent school year was even greater than
Dr. Bentley and his colleagues had anti
cipated. As a result the college is facing a
possible deficit of $5(X),(XX) for the cur
rent fiscal year, which ends May 31.
‘‘Such a deficit is significant if we
don’t do something about it,” he said.
‘‘Next year (1983-84) if there is another
significant decline in enrollment we
might expect a deficit of approximately
$750,000. And the following year, over a
million dollars. We cannot continue to
spend more money than we take in;
therefore, in order to make certain that
Mars Hill College remains a strong
school, we are having to reduce our
work force and institute other savings.”
To help him deal with the problem Dr.
Bentley has appointed a ‘‘small but ef
fective” president’s cabinet consisting of
Dr. Richard Hoffman, Dr. Michael
a^O’Brien, Dr. Smith Goodrum, dr. Jack
Grose, and Claude Vess. This group will
evaluate suggestions, interpret the gravi
ty of the problem to the faculty and
staff, and formulate alternate plans.
Already, Dr. Bentley and the cabinet
have begun meeting with groups of the
faculty, by department, to discuss the
situation with them. There are plans for
similar discussions with residence hall
staffs, the Appalachian and Church
Leadership scholars, and various other
groups. The Community Meeting sched
uled for Feb. 15 will be devoted solely to
explanation of plans and proposals for
meeting the college’s financial problems.
‘‘My whole talk will be about this
matter to anybody who shows up,” Dr.
Bentley commented. That meeting will
allow students, as well as faculty and
staff pwsonnel, to hear directly what is
taking place.
Among the proposals being discussed
as possible solutions to the college’s
financial crisis are the following:
(1) Freezing faculty tenure and all sala
ries until the budget is stabilized;
(2) Raising tuition and fees in the regular
program;
(3) Making the student work program a
top priority in helping replace full-time
staff;
(4) Cutting faculty positions where need
ed to achieve a 15-to-l student/teacher
ratio;
(5) Requiring all departments of the col
lege to contribute to efforts to hold
down the anticipated deficits. (‘‘Every
one shares in biting the bullet!”)
Currently the student/teacher ratio is
11-to-l. In moving this to 15-to-l the
college will follow AAUP guidelines
whenever possible in cutting faculty. Dr.
Bentley said. This will help reduce finan-
— Turn To Page 3
RICH MAN/POOR MAN - Hypnotist Tom DeLuka Oeft) tries to convince student
Pete Kesterson that he is the richest man, and then the poorest man, in the world.
DeLuka fascinated his audience with his hypnotic feats on stage, using many
students as his innocent victims, photo by david wachter