Clarion 1976-11-12 Vol 52 No 10

              Breaks — an important part of maintenance men's day
Clarion
Bethel College St. Paul, MN November 12, 1976
Dean Brushaber met with students last week to discuss
campus issues
Grounds. From his leadership the
maintenance men have gleaned a
simple perspective of their job.
"Anything goes wrong, we fix
it," said Reuben Johnson, resi-dent
locksmith and all-around
mechanic.
Fellow shop workers with
Reuben are George Olson and
Morris Sanborn, heating engi-neers.
Lighthearted Morrie says
of his work among the boilers and
air conditioning system, "I don't
need the money — I'm just here
to wear old clothes!"
Camaraderie reigns
as maintenance men
labor for Bethel
by Kathleen Asselin
At the designated coffee break
time of 9:30 a.m. or 2:30 p.m. on
weekdays, most students are in
class, studying in the library, or
passing a free hour in the coffee
shop.
However, down in the depths
of Bethel's basement and in the
far reaches of the maintenance
shop, a friendly crew gathers to
share their fifteen minute breaks.
Reminiscient of King Arthur's
knights, as many as sixteen
maintenance personnel assemble
about the break room table
(rectangular, not round). A large
black and white television resides
over the gathering, a multi-colored
weaving from Guatemala
announcing "The Bethel mainte-nance
department" hangs on the
wall, and the general mood is
festive.
Charlie Backlund, Bethel's
plumber, and Harold Watkins, the
electrician, and Stan Gunderson,
mechanical engineer, round out
the shop crew. (Harold is notori-ous
as the local flirt.)
Custodians Keith Tekautz and
Carl Macke are well-known faces
around the school buildings.
Keith, the human whirlwind,
always has a friendly comment or
joke for everybody. His cohort,
Carl, enjoys the "liberty to go
ahead and work hard" in a
Christian institution like Bethel.
Jim Woods, the Custodial
Supervisor, handles the adminis-trative
work, according to secre-tary
Jane Carns. His range of
responsibilities includes super-vising
student maintenance
workers, lining up helpers for
special events, and keeping
faculty, staff, and houseparents
happy when offices and dorms
aren't as clean as they should be.
While the Seminary buildings
Clearing the grounds —
another task for maintenance
crew
have their own custodian, Bill
Carlson, and Old Campus enjoys
the special attention of custodi-ans
Eric Kammuyer and Ernie
Bliss, and carpenter Charles
Peterman, the other maintenance
men cover the three campuses.
Eric Borgeson, who claims 50
years of service for the Baptist
General Conference, retired this
past summer. However, the smil-ing
Swede still visits the Old
Campus "just out of habit,"
according to Jane Carns.
Out on the grounds, Cliff
Erickson, Roger Staven, and Don
DeJung insist that they are
"making the New Campus more
beautiful every day." Festival of
Christmas is the next big event
for the groundskeepers as well as
the choirs, according to Don
DeJung.
"We have Christmas trees to
cut down in the nursery back of
the East Townhouses," he said,
"and wood to chop for the
fireplaces in the rec rooms." Don
graduated last year from Bethel,
majoring in social work. Says
Cliff: "Now he's being social to
the grass."
Security personnel Jim Wal-cott,
Dick Barany, Tom Steller,
and Hideo Nishihata along with
Night Crew Supervisor John
Peterson missed out on the
gallon of peppermint bon-bon ice
cream shared at last Friday's
afternoon coffee break. One of
the merry maintenance men said
that the grounds people found
money for the treat. ("They raked
up 'green lettuce' this morning.")
After sampling the dessert, I
think it's just further evidence of
the camaraderie of the mainte-nance
crew.
The TV reigns during their noon
lunch break, according to Verne
Anderson, Bethel's carpenter and
painter ("depends on which hat
I'm wearing"). "I Dream of
Jeannie" is the noontime show of
shows.
"Great therapy," commented
Verne.
Groundskeeper Cliff Erickson
agreed, "Sometimes we even
forget to eat."
Head honcho for the depart-ment
is Glen Hayne, Superin-tendent
of Buildings and
Student questioners grill Dean Brushaber in open forum
by Bill Trollinger
Wednesday, Nov. 3 was the
first in a possible series of
Student Administration forums.
Students had a chance to ask
Dean Brushaber questions about
problems here on campus.
In a lively 90-minute give-and-take
session, Brushaber inter-acted
with a fluctuating group of
50-75 students about faculty
salaries, enrollment, housing,
and interim (to mention a few of
the areas covered).
'Acknowledging that we cannot
reprint a transcript of the forum,
the following are representative
excerpts from that session.
Student: Have teacher salaries
gone up in proportion to tuition
hikes and cost-of-living increas-es?
Brushaber: Our first goal is to try
and match inflation. In this we
have been successful over the
past five years, because salaries
have gone up 0.1 per cent in
respect to inflation rises. Yet, I
think that in terms of the quality
of the faculty that we have here at
Bethel, teachers should be get-ting
paid more. I am concerned
that we do better in this area.
Student: What about the seem-ing
prevalence of part-time teach-ers?
Brushaber: We have increased
the ratio of full-time to part-time
faculty since I have been here.
Also, I do feel that sometimes a
part-time teacher who is a
practitioner of what he teaches is
good. Still, I realize that we need
to consolidate our faculty situa-tion
here.
Student: What is the student-faculty
ratio here?
Brushaber: It is 18 to 1 here at
Bethel. This compares favorably
to 23 to 1 at Gordon College and
17 to 1 at Wheaton College.
But this really is a bogus
statistic. Other areas are much
more important to examine. One
is the faculty-advisee ratio, which
is much more important. Also,
we need to look at individual
departments. For instance, we
realize that both the business and
economics departments are un-derstaffed,
and we are working to
correct this.
Student: Where is the cutoff
point? Where is the point at
which the quality of education
and community drops so much
that the enrollment must be
halted?
Brushaber: I'm not prepared to
say that the quality has gone
down. In fact, I feel it has gone
up.
But your question is still a
good one. The problem is that is
is a different point for different
students in different areas. There
is no hard and fast rule that a
certain point in enrollment is
good or bad for everyone.
But there are certain barome-ters
that we must watch in terms
of enrollment limits. One is
retention rate. Another is in terms
of student morale. We must
watch these closely and not be
flippant about the problem.
About the morale here at
Bethel. Last year we gave a
certain percentage of the stu-dents
a standardized test, called
the CUES test, which measures
the campus environment. In
terms of student morale, in terms
of students' opinions of faculty
and the quality of education,
Bethel rates higher than 80 per
cent of the colleges in the nation.
And this is one side of the issue
that should have been mentioned
in the Clarion.
Student: Still, isn't there a point
at which the actual facilities are
so crowded that we have to stop
enrollment increases?
Brushaber: Yes, I'm sure there is,
but I don't know where that point
is. I wish I knew where that magic
number was.
Student: With the addition of this
new annex can the present
facilities hold 2000?
Brushaber: Not really. The annex
should have been built when we
had 1600 students. But we're
caught in that trap where you
never fully catch up, where you
are always behind.
Student: What about the serious
housing shortage?
Brushaber: We have plans for
residence halls by the tennis
courts to be done by Sept. 1. It
will take a miracle for them to get
done, but we've got to try.
Student: How did the housing
situation get to the point where it
is now?
Brushaber: That is a tough
question. We are still paying for
the years of huge enrollment
increases: 1972, 1973, 1974.
We had a choice: whether to
commit to Nob Hill or to bring
students together in "three in a
room" at Old Campus. We
decided that the crowded situa-tion
was better than the isolation
of Nob Hill.
Student: What about the married
students' housing situation?
Brushaber: We are working
toward Constructing apartments
here on campus or purchasing
apartments to rent to married
students. Dr. Nettleton is work-ing
very hard in this area.
(Note: A question was raised
about Interim fees, but this is
covered on page 6 of the Clarion).