Regents axe phys ed, statistics

Compiled by Christina Woo and Amanda Hunt

Arizona Summer Wildcat, with wire sevices

After months of fighting, Physical Education and Statistics lost the final battle in the war over department cuts.

The Arizona Board of Regents voted unianimously to dump the two University of Arizona programs at their June meeting Thursday at Northern Arizona University's satellite campus in Yuma.

The physical education program and the statistics and journalism departments have been under review for over a year.

Faculty Senate committees were set up to review the elimination proposals for each department. The statistics committee supported cutting the department and the physical education and journalism committees supported retaining the departments. The Faculty Senate supported all three committee recommendations.

UA President Manuel T. Pacheco backed the committee recommendation to cut statistics and also recommended to the regents that the physical education program be eliminated. Pacheco has not yet made his recommendation for the journalism department.

The board also voted to eliminate the undergraduate nuclear engineering degree, merging its other programs into the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering.

At Friday's meeting the Regents approved a $1,500 tuition hike for the college of pharmacy, above what other UA students pay annually.

The board also approved the UA's sale of 289 acres of land at Kinney and Bopp Roads near Old Tucson Studios. Tucson Mountain Development has proposed paying $1.3 million, or $4,500 an acre, for the land and has proposed building homes, a hotel and a golf course.

The Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education has formed a committee whose purpose is to prioritize classrooms throughout campus for upgrades. The committee has committed over $3.3 million to date, with the ultimate goal of funding at least $10 million worth of upgrades.

Due to campus growth, the University has exhausted its supply of telephone numbers using the 621 prefix. All new telephone and other telecommunications equipment installed in offices on campus will be given a 626 prefix.

The change only applies to new installations and customer-requested number changes. Currently assigned phone numbers will not be affected. The change will be effective immediately.

Ian Pepper, a professor in the Department of Soil and Water Science, collaborated with several colleagues to develop the text, "Pollution Science." In 1993, Pepper helped create an environmental science major in the UA College of Agriculture. Today, 130 UA students are majoring in environmental science. The program provides a strong background in the chemical, biological and physical sciences.

Pepper expects the text to be printed at the end of this year. It will feature 130 computer graphics and case studies, but according to Pepper, the driving force behind the book will be its text. He hopes to take the royalties from the book and use them for scholarships in environmental science. For more information on "Pollution Science" contact Ian Pepper at 621-5155.

Astronomers at the Submillimeter Telescope Observatory (SMTO) on Mount Graham have begun preliminary science observations that test the capabilities of their 10-meter telescope for astronomical observing.

The Heinrich Hertz Submillimeter Telescope (SMT) is comparably as good as, if not better, than other telescopes in its class, but teams of troubleshooting U.S. and German scientists and engineers say they have yet to bring the telescope "up to spec."

The UA and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, jointly operate the $8 million telescope on 10,425 foot Emerald Peak in the Pinaleno Mountain range of southeastern Arizona. First observations from the telescope were made in February 1994.

Gary Liebcap, professor of economics and director of the Karl Eller Center for the Study of the Private Market Economy, was chosen as the 1995 Anderson Consulting Professor of the Year at the UA. The award recognizes faculty in the College of Business and Public Administration to "honor the total role of the professor as educator, researcher and community leader."

Liebcap is an authority on government regulations relating to business and the impact of property rights on business and investment decisions. He is best known on campus as the director of the Eller Center's entrepreneurship program, which has led to the creation of at least 65 new business ventures and hundreds of newly created jobs.

Lawrence Huelsman, professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering received the 1995 Education Award from the Circuits and Systems Society of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

The award was given "in recognition of outstanding contributions in active resistor capacitor (RC) circuits and innovative introduction of computers in circuit theory education." RC's are important in modern communication equipment because they filter desired signals from unwanted ones.

Huelsman, along with UA professor Emeritus William Kerwin and University of Maryland Professor Robert Newcomb have written a seminal paper on such filter circuits that remains the most referenced paper on active RC circuits.

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