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The Student Newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Charlotte, North Carolina
Volume XIII, Number 6
October 4, 1977
Student Atty. General Forrest Bowen Resigns
By Brad Rich
Student Body Attorney General
Forrest Bowen officially resigned
Tuesday, October 4 , at a meeting of
the UNCC Student Legislature amidst
week long rumors he would leave the
post.
Bowen, who took over the position
when Chase Idol assumed the presidency,
said rumors of his resignation had start^
earlier in the week when someone read a
note on Idol’s door in which he stated his
plans. “I put the note under Chase’s
door,” Bowen said, “and apparently
somebody thought it had fallen off and
pinned off and pinned it up on the
outside of the door. After that, the news
spread pretty fast.”
Bowen cited three main reasons for
his resignation. First and foremost was
that the demands of the job on his tirhe
and energy were causing his academics to
suffer “more than I’m used to.” He said
to do the job well, he had to invest a lot
of time, and the schedule was cutting into
his studying time.
Another factor was the salary cuts
made by Legislature. Bowen said when he
took the job he was expecting to make
enough money that he wouldn’t have to
take another job. When Legislature made
the cut, he found this impossible. “I had
hoped to make enough to just barely get
by,” he said, “and I found I couldn’t even
do that.”
Thirdly, Bowen said, “I don’t feel
like I fit in up there (in Student
Government). I am disappointed in the
level of committment shown by many of
the people. There’s a lot of political
backstabbing going on, and there’s too
much politics in the way things are being
run.”
Bowen declined to name any
Individuals responsible for the
backstabbing and bickering but did say,
“There are several individuals that
facilitate the political arm. It is passed
down from generation to
generation...There are a lot of people in
Legislature who know the mechanism of
government but are just going through
the motions.”
He said the Legislature is a self
perpetuating body and often does not
affect the student body as a whole. “You
ask the average student what the
Legislature does for him, and in most
cases he can’t say. 1 don’t feel that it is
wrong for the body to be self
perpetuating, but that shouldn’t be their
only purpose. Many of the things that are
decided in that body never go out of that
caucus room.”
Bowen also criticized the way the
Legislature makes many of its decisions.
“Most of the motions are passed in the
last five minutes of the meetings,” he
said, “when they are in a hurry to go
home or to class. No one is prepared to
make good sound decisions on many
matters.
“I just wanted to do a good job and
avoid all the political mess,” Bowen said.
“Legislature does do some good things,
and there are a lot of smart people, but
my perspective is different. 1 think they
could be a lot more efficient and active.”
Bowen said a big plus for the job was
the opportunity to work with the
administration. “1 hear a lot of criticism
about the administration, but very few
people go to them and talk frankly. I
have, and have gotten unbelievable
support from them.”
their proposed salaries cut by over 50 per
cent. “In total, the Legislature members
are paid about $5,600.00. That’s a lot of
money, and yet they complain about
there not being enough to go around,” he
said.
“...There are a lot of people in Legislature who know the mechanisms of
government but are just going through the motions.”,-Ex-Student Body Attorney
General Forrest Bowen.
■ ^
He said there is some
anti-administration feeling in the Student
Government, but not as much as in the
past. “1 think this is an ongoing
complaint. It’s sort of like dorm students
cutting down the food service. PFM does
a helluva job, but students still complain.
It’s tradition, sort of a cliche...and
sometimes it’s a personal against a
particular administrator. It’s been stated
by the Chairman of the Legislature that
we’re moving from an era oi' distrust
between students and the administration
to an era of distrust between the students
themselves. I disagree wholeheartedly. If
some people (on the Legislature would
just let their pride suffer a little and
admit their lack of expertise on some
matters, then go out and do research and
come out with the optimal answers,
things would be better. That’s what I
meant by being disappointed in the level
of committment.”
On the matter of salaries, Bowen said
he sees “gross inequities.” He feels it is
ridiculous for all members of the
Legislature to get apid for merely
attending the meetings, while the
President and the Attorney General got
Davis:
-Reaching Excellence Awards-
Bowen said he feels that if the
University is going to pay students for
jobs of this type (including media and
program board positions) then each
-position should have a set salary, and
increases or decreases should be made
“across the board.”
Bowen does feel he accomplished
some good things while in office,
especially the creation of a new jitdicial
act. “A lot of people worked very hard
for a lotrg time otr that act,” he said, “and
many schools will be warrtirrg to come
look at it. Very few schools itr this area
have judicial .systetrrs that work. They
look good on paper, but not in practice,
and trrany will be interested in ours.”
In conclusion, Bowen .said he harbors
tro ill ieclitrgs toward anyone, but wishes
the governmerrt could be-more effective.
‘I m not the type to hold thirrgs against
anyone. I just don’t feel like 1 fit in,” he
■said.
Student Legislature Chairperson Jack
Summerlin said of Bowen, “Overall,
Forre.st had done an outstanding job of
(Continued on Page 7)
Teaching’s A Process
Fishman:
Spontaneity’s Important
(Articles Continued On Page 7)
By Les Bowen
Interviewing Dr. Boyd Davis, UNCC
English professor and one of two 10th
annual NCNB Teaching Award Excellence
Awards winners, is like trying to catch
rainwater in a sieve.
The words come down bright and
shiny and clear, and you try to write
them down, but more words are coming
before you get those written down right
and the words just keep coming faster
and faster and finally she finishes
Dr. Boyd Davis
(photo by Dean Dugger)
answering the question and sits back and
gives you a gum stretching Jimmy Carter
smile while your pen is scribbling
furiously, trying to remember exactly
how...“Let’s see, that comes after this
and before that, but, no...”
To slow her down would somehow
take something away from the statement;
the sentences would lose some of their
brilliance if they weren’t tumbling over
each other and weren’t laced with
parenthetical comments and funny,
self-deprecatory asides.
Take, for example, the story of how
Boyd Davis happened to come to UNCC
from a teaching position at Queens
College. She went to lunch with a faculty
representative who talked about the
objectives of the English department:
“We went to the Amber House and
ate vegetable soup and he talked to me
about what the English department here
was trying to do and I thought, ‘boy, that
sounds like fun.’ It was very good
vegetable soup, too. 1 generally walk into
things backwards, anyway; I did not
intend to get into teaching, I did not
intend to get a PhD, I did not intend to
get married and I did not intend to have
kids, and I ended up doing all those
things. I’m not unstable, just flexible.”
Davis’ flexibility extends to her
approach to teaching; she feels that there
are few guidelines as to what constitutes
“good” teaching.
By Les Bowen
The way NCNB Teaching Excellence
Award winner Dr. Stephen M. Fishman
found his way to the UNCC Philosophy
department from his native Bronx, New
York was, as he described it “fortuitous.’
“That is, the immediate cause was
fortuitous,” Fishman said last week.
“One Saturday morning I was going to
the bookstore and I ran into another
graduate student. He had interviewed for
this job but because of his wife’s interests
he was taking a job in St. Louis. He told
me about the job down here, which 1
hadn’t heard of, and I applied and got it.
Like I said, that was the immediate cause,
but I think in the back of my mind there
was a desire to leave New York, having
lived there all my life.”
Once Fishman and his wife Beryl
relocated in Charlotte they found life
here quite different from that which they
had left...but the differences were not the
ones most people who move from the
City to a medium sized southern town
mention.
“When I grew up in New York I grew
up in a neighborhood. Where I live now
there is a suggestion of a neighborhood,
but where 1 grew up everything was right
there — the theater, the school, shopping.
You didn’t have to have a car. You knew
everybody fairly well; the doctor’s kid
went to school with you, the
haberdasher’s kid went to school with
you...Here, you have to drive everywhere.
(photo courtc.sy ol Information Offic
Dr. Stephen M. Fishman
There isn’t much walking in the street,
and you aren’t meeting people...Really, 1
find my wife’s time taken up with driving
the kids from place to place... You would
think that the city would be more
impersonal, but it wasn’t that way for
me. Most of New York probably isn’t like
that anymore, though.”
Fishman said he had two major goals
as a teacher. “First, in most of the
philosophy classes 1 teach I’m concerned
with students getting a sense of the