Plan for Cuts at Chapman Spurs Faculty to Respond : Education: Angered by president’s proposal, faculty members approve a statement calling for immediate discussion of the college’s future.

Angered by college President Allen E. Koenig’s proposal to cut teaching positions, strengthen professional programs and de-emphasize liberal arts, Chapman College faculty members unanimously approved a statement Thursday reaffirming their commitment to the college’s values and calling for immediate discussion of the institution’s future.

“Simply put . . . there needs to be a meeting of minds, a direct encounter on the issues that are raised in the strategic plan,” said Marvin Meyer, a tenured professor of religion. “We have been confronted by the president and we need to confront him back with an equal amount of vigor.”

Koenig’s five-year strategic plan, a draft of which has been circulating among Chapman faculty the past week, calls for a nearly 20% reduction in faculty by academic year 1993-94. Almost all of those cuts would come in the college’s liberal arts schools: Humanities and Social Sciences, and Natural and Health Sciences. Both of those schools would lose almost half their faculty members.

At the same time, Koenig is proposing to bolster the college’s business, economics, psychology, education and communications offerings and rename the college to reflect university status. Class size and teaching loads for professors would increase; sabbaticals would be granted less frequently, and opportunities to do research and original scholarship, faculty members say, would necessarily decrease.

The faculty’s responses to the proposal have ranged from mildly alarmed to shocked, and the possibility of a no-confidence vote against Koenig has been broached.

“The very nature of the institution is being undermined by this kind of proposal,” Meyer said. “A vote of no confidence is something very strong, and yet, some of us have very strong feelings about this. My hope is, it hasn’t come to that point. But if it must come to that, then it must.”

At Thursday’s emergency meeting--described by one professor, who declined to be identified, as “the most well-attended meeting since I’ve been at Chapman”--faculty members chose to eschew a harshly worded response in the hope that another meeting with Koenig scheduled for Monday will avert all-out war.

“There was a great deal of unanimity and pulling together of the faculty,” said Karl Reitz, a professor of mathematics and social sciences. “I found that a very hopeful and important sign for our community.

“We are committed to our students, we are committed to education both in terms of a professional and a liberal arts tradition,” said Reitz, a member of the faculty planning committee. “We’re committed to quality in terms of teaching. Those are some things that we all agreed.”

But Reitz and other professors declined to talk at length about the statement they approved.

Koenig “should have an opportunity to look at it and to respond,” said Ken Tye, an education department professor who helped draft the statement. “The faculty was unanimous, basically asking for us to cooperate and not be confrontational.”

College administrators could not be reached for comment.

Meyer said he thought that the statement was “probably all right,” but he questioned whether it went far enough in sending Koenig a message of the depths of faculty concern.

“It was a very moderate kind of motion, very reasonable, very sensible,” Meyer said. “Frankly, for my own tastes, it may not have been sufficiently confrontational. . . . I think our president appreciates things put strongly.”

Koenig’s plan addresses what he sees as the college’s failure to accurately communicate to students what kind of institution Chapman has become. According to his proposal, many students confuse Chapman with surrounding, similarly named two-year colleges: Cypress, Cerritos, Citrus and Chaffey colleges. And Chapman’s “small-college” reputation belies its 2,300-student enrollment, including many graduate and professional schools, according to the plan.

With the number of college-age students shrinking, Chapman administrators say the school must attract a higher percentage of applicants from the 30,000 students who inquire about it each year. Currently, only 4% apply; Koenig hopes to bring that up to 10%, enabling Chapman to expand its enrollment and become more selective at the same time.

But faculty members are concerned that in trying to tailor Chapman to what he perceives to be current market demand, Koenig may be irrevocably altering the nature of a successful institution with healthy liberal arts programs.

“I love Chapman College,” said Meyer, who has taught at the school for six years. “I am willing to work and struggle for Chapman College at this point. . . . Because of my appreciation for the school, I’m not going to sit back and sit on my hands.”