By Jennifer M. Fitzenberger
Arizona Daily Wildcat
October 27, 1997

Ousted AIC prof to be UA lecturer

An AIC professor dismissed last summer will teach at the UA main campus as a lecturer, a Faculty Senate official said.

Jerry Hogle, University of Arizona's Faculty Senate chairman, told senators Kalí Tal will hold lectureships at the main campus for the next two years.

She will be eligible to resume teaching at the Arizona International Campus of the UA by 1999, he said.

Tal will finish this school year as a research lecturer and move to a teaching lectureship for the 1998-99 year.

Tal learned her one-year contract would not be renewed last summer and appealed first to AIC head Celestino Fernández, executive vice president and provost, and later to former UA President Manuel Pacheco, who upheld the termination.

While at AIC, Tal had been critical of the fledgling branch campus' no-tenure policy.

She finally made a deal with President Peter Likins Oct. 14, one day before Fernández announced his resignation, effective June 30. Likins had earlier announced a plan to move AIC to the main campus and rename it Arizona International College.

Fernández turned down an offer to remain head of AIC if it moves next summer. He will return to his tenured sociology department teaching position next year.

Hogle did not elaborate on where Tal will work at the UA or what her job will entail.

On Friday, the Arizona Board of Regents will decide the fate of the struggling four-year liberal arts college located near the intersection of South Santa Rita Road and Interstate 10.

If the board gives Likins' plan the go ahead AIC will use the main campus as an "incubator" until it develops the enrollment and financial support needed to launch its own campus.

After Fernández announced his resignation, AIC faculty and administrators said they suspected the controversy between Fernández and Tal was one reason behind his decision.

Although Fernández said it did not influence his decision, Lucian Spataro, associate to the provost at AIC, said Fernández was unfairly singled out.

"She (Tal) has played it up as an entire dispute between him (Fernández), but she had many other problems with other people as well," Spataro said Oct. 15. "She just did not fit in."

At the same time, AIC professor Hiber Conteris also mentioned Tal when he said Fernández was "being attacked from many different angles."

Tal's reinstatement and Fernández's resignation come on the heels of a petition signed by 27 UA faculty members that called AIC a "huge waste of taxpayer money."

The year-old branch campus received $2.2 million from the state Legislature this year, after requesting $5 million. It received a $950,000 loan from the UA this year just to remain afloat.

Both Likins and Fernández were out of town last week and unavailable for comment. Assistant to the UA president Sharon Kha did not return phone calls.