Chapman President Meets With Faculty to Discuss Plan : Restructuring: The two-hour session between Allen E. Koenig and the faculty members was tense. Several previously outspoken professors would not comment.

Chapman College President Allen E. Koenig had a tense two-hour meeting with faculty members Monday on his controversial proposal to restructure the institution and eliminate much of its liberal arts program.

The meeting, convened in the school’s Waltmar Theatre, was Koenig’s first with the faculty since he unveiled his five-year strategic plan last week. The plan met with a wall of opposition among faculty members, who drafted a response unanimously calling for an alternative plan to be devised by a joint faculty-administration task force.

At the meeting Monday, Koenig made a conciliatory opening statement in which he endorsed the joint task force idea and said that “nothing in the draft is sacred.”

But he also criticized faculty members--some by name--for publicly voicing their concerns about his proposal, and he said that he “cannot see any positive role for the media, the general public, nor our competitors to play.”

Several professors, some of whom have been outspoken in their opposition to Koenig’s plan, said Monday that they could not comment on the meeting. Two professors who refused to be named said that faculty members fear for their jobs and that there is a strong possibility that an emergency faculty meeting expected to be called Thursday will produce a no-confidence vote.

“He’s created a climate of intimidation and fear,” one professor said.

Koenig’s statement to the faculty and a press release summarizing events at the meeting were made available to the media Monday night by the college public relations office.

Koenig has said that his restructuring plan is necessary for Chapman to hang on to its share of a dwindling pool of college students and to survive financially. His plan calls for a reduction of nearly 20% in the faculty by academic year 1993-94, with almost all of the cuts coming in the liberal arts programs.

The reorganized institution, which Koenig proposes renaming a university, would emphasize professional programs in business, economics, psychology, education and communications. The president’s proposal also calls for increasing class sizes and teaching loads, limiting sabbaticals and opportunities to do research, and eliminating pay increases not based on merit.

In response, the faculty called the plan “severely flawed and in many ways unworkable.”

On Monday, Koenig told the faculty that the college faces “a potential million-dollar deficit” and that applications for next year were running 25% behind last year.

“We can no longer do business as usual--either in finance or program, and I stand by my draft of the strategic plan for now,” Koenig told the faculty.