1977-10-05; Central Michigan Life

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Wili federal changes
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(Editor's note: In the first of a three-part series studying the
Social Security Administration and how changes to the present
system will affect the CMU budget and faculty, CM LIFE today
looks at how proposed changes in Social Security benefits will affect
CMU's budget
Part two will deal with retirement programs available to CMU
faculty and part three will assess the proposed changes to the Social
Security program and how legislators in Washington feel about the
proposed changes.)
byPAULRAU
LIFE Managing Editor
Although the ink is dry on CMU's $38 million "razor thin" 1977-78
budget, some lines in the budget have not been drawn yet, leaving
University administrators confident but slightly uneasy over the
amounts budgeted for unknown areas.
The short but crucial list of budget areas without fixed expenditures is headed by the amount the University must pay
toward a faculty member's Social Security retirement package.
Changes to the Social Security system now are being considered
by Congress. Other unbudgeted items hinge on the outcome of
collective bargaining at CMU,
Expenditures dependent on collective bargaining include the-
amount of faculty salaries, unknown pending the outcome of current
bargaining talks which have not yet swung to economic areas. Also
unknown are salaries for CMU maintenance and food service employees unionized with the American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees which will begin to bargain a new contract this month.
CMU has some control over these budget items since the groups
must bargain with the University to fix their salaries.
Therefore, it is the first outstanding budget item which has administrators sitting on the edge of their chairs — Social Security
benefits to faculty members, an area in which frequent changes
completely out of CMU's control often occur.
"We've made the estimate that nothing is going to go wrong. We
know they're going to change the Social Security system, but it
would take a major change to have an impact on our budget," Arthur Ellis, vice president for Public Affairs, said.
The change Ellis expects is in the upper limit of faculty salaries
up to which an employer must pay Social Security benefits in the
employee's name. This limit currently is set at $16,500 nationwide,
but proposals have been advanced in Washington to raise the upper
level to $17,700 or to remove it completely.
This means CMU would pay into an employee's Social Security
retirement program past the current $16,500 limit. If the upper
limit were removed, this would have a major impact on CMU's
budget, Ellis said.
"We've built it (anticipated increases) into the budget. But if our
obligation to pay Social Security benefits is raised to an unlimited
level, that would throw our budget into a tailspin," Ellis said.
"But we don't anticipate that to happen," he added.
CMU paid out $2,729,560 last year into faculty Social
Security retirement programs.
CMU now matches the employee's contribution of 5,85 percent of
his or her salary. The funds go from the state to the federal
government and are returned to faculty members upon retirement.
However, this figure already is scheduled for an increase to 6.05
percent Jan. 1. president Jimmy Carter also has proposed the
employer pay a higher percent than the employee, a trend away
from the matching amounts which have been a feature of the Social
Security program since its inception.
The Social Security program has been subject to constant review
and change since former president Theodore Roosevelt initiated the
system in 1935,
Social Security numbers were issued beginning in 1936, taxing to
(See "Social Security-" page 8)
IchlQon
Volume 59 No. 16
Mount Pleasant, Michigan 48859
Wednesday, Oct. 5,1977
FA, CMU tackle
new package deal
byTONYDEARING
LIFE News Editor
With one major package
behind them, CMU and Faculty
Association (FA) bargainers
began work Tuesday on a new
package of issues including
calendar and Institute for
Personal , and Career
"B^elopwent* 'fH»£-$■• *uM "Httff
campus teaching.
The teams Monday wrapped up
a package deal they had been
working on since Labor Day, and
after a good deal of give and
take came up with a new
package of 10 related issues to
tackle next.
After defining the new
package, FA and CMU
negotiators quickly went on to
reach agreement on one of the
issues contained in the
package—affirmitive action—
and began talks on off campus
and IPCD teaching.
J. Norbert Musto, FA chief
negotiator, said his team considers the IPCD and off campus
issue to be the most important in
the package.
The FA proposal calls for ail
off campus and IPCD teaching to
be done on a voluntary basis,
and for such teaching positions
to be first offered to members of
the department the course falls
under, before being offered to
other CMU faculty or outside
personnel.
"The main issues are
availability and volunteerism,"
Musto said*
^*Wei'firVdit^ak6riittle^dn'§e
to hire persons other than, from
the University to teach off
campus courses when we have
people here in the departments
willing to teach them," he said.
"Also, we want to make sure
off campus teaching is not used
as an artifical condition to intimidate or harass people.
Travel can limit one's
professional growth. We don't
want off campus teaching
assignments to somehow be
used to reward some people and
punish others," Musto said.
Musto said if off campus
teaching were voluntary, the
potential for it to be used to
harass faculty hopefully would
be eliminated.
However, John Weatherford,
CMU chief negotiator, said the
FA proposal, as written, was
unacceptable.
Weatherford said the proposal
lacked flexibility and would
restrict the University's
growth. He said the teams would
try to iron out these difficulties
when barginaining resumes
Monday at 3 p.m. in Foust 204.
Musto said he believes a
proposal which would answer
tftes_%^cwc|fh«^rmT5istiH not
restrict the growth of the
University is possible.
^Leiipjngmtojthe arms of his future fraternity br^^ersrKarlDavidrGaylord sophomore, flashes the
number one sign after being inducted into CMU's Sigma Phi Epsilon chapter, David was participating in
fraternity bid day Monday outside Finch Fieldhouse (LIFE "photo by Michael C. Meyers).
Public Safety to stop, impound
parking violaters'automohiles
by BECKY HAAKSMA
LIFE Staff Writer
Persons with 10 or more unpaid campus parking tickets may be
pulled over by Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers as well as
have their vehicles impounded while parked in campus parking lots.
■ John McAuliffe, DPS director, explained Tuesday persons with 10
or more unpaid tickets stopped on University streets will have the
option of driving to DPS to pay outstanding tickets or face impoundment of their vehicles.
Enforcing the policy of impounding cars of persons with outstanding tickets began Monday, One vehicle was impounded
Tuesday, DPS reported.
DPS is authorized to order vehicles on University property
impounded under Public Act 48 of 1963 and Public Act 291 of 1967
which say universities may write their own parking ordinances.
CMU's traffic ordinance was approved by the Board of Trustees
in October of 1971.
Violators of this ordinance receive campus parking tickets. A
policy approved by the President's Council this, summer allows the
impounding of cars owned by people who have 10 or more unpaid
tickets.
The policy does not specifically say DPS may pull over cars of
persons with more than 10 unpaid tickets but that is how DPS interpreted it, McAuliffe said.
Paraphrasing the policy, McAuliffe said,' "They told us if all
else fails—tow."
Steps taken before impoundment include issuing a ticket, sending
a warning every time a ticket goes unpaid and issuing a warrant
after the third unpaid ticket.
McAuliffe said DPS cannot track down all violators with warrants
because many are issued to students' parents who have the car
registered in their name.
When asked if he believed "all else had failed" when DPS began
impounding vehicles, McAuliffe said, "These people have gone,
through this 10 times and ignored everything."
Two near-drownings inspire
woman's swimming lessons
The fear that something in the water would grab her and pull
her toward the bottom prompted Margaret Chalmers, graduate
assistant in recreation and park administration, to learn to scuba
dive. Her fear stemmed from two accidents in which she almost
drowned, First she learned to swim, then to scuba dive. Chalmers
also is a certified teacher of mid-eastern dance, better known as
belly dancing (LIFE photo by Pam Eckman),
by SCOTT SIMONS
LIFE Copy Editor
Take a mermaid, belly dancer
and scuba diver and what have
you got? No, not an erotic underwater party but a CMU
recreation professor.
Some may think that these
activities make Margaret
Chalmers, graduate assistant in
recreation and park administration, an interesting but
unusual person. But for
Chalmers, 32, her interest in the
sea did not come naturally.   .
It was almost drowning twice
in her early years that posed a
challenge to not only learn to
swim, but to scuba dive as well.
As she put it herself, "Since
the accidents, whenever I was
swimming, I always felt that;
some dreadful and terrible
thing, which even my
imagination could not describe,
would suddenly rise from the
ocean depths and pull me down
toward the bottom."
After "much perseverence"
Chalmers  did  pass  a  Young
Men's Christian Association
scuba class and joined
Aquasport, a diving club based
in Montreal, where she lived for
10 months.
While an Aquasport member,
Chalmers took her most interesting dive, below ice in 34
degree water. "There were 15
divers that planned to make the
dive but only five actually went
under. Three of the 15 were
from t Jacque Cousteau's Underwater team testing some
equipment, but just one from
that group went down. It was
just too cold; the air was 10
degrees below zero," Chalmers
said.
The group Stayed down just
20 minutes but the dive was
more for the feeling than for the
sights afforded by the depths of
Silver Lake.
"Piercing through the murky
darkenss was a long shaft of
light. It reminded me somehow
of a 15th century religious
painting with a heavenly light
streaming down  through  the
clouds," Chalmers said.
Now when it gets too cold to
scuba dive, Chalmers takes to
the indoors and partakes in
another of her favorite
pastimes - mid-eastern dancing,
or as it is commonly known in
American slang - belly dancing.
"Many people think the
dancing is associated with
striptease or burlesque - but it's
not, There are a lot of different
styles depending on the country,
and in some the dancing is done
fully clothed," Chalmers said.
"You have to have a feeling
for the music; what you are
doing is dancing out a story,"
she added.
Expo '67 in Montreal provided
Chalmers ^vith her mermaid
experience in one of the five
pavilions - Man and the Ocean.
Staying underwater in a glass
tank for 20 minutes in each hour,
she swam around to different
hoses along the side for air.
In addition to her Leisure
Pursuits class, designed to help
CMU students pursue leisure
time activities, she teaches
physical enrichment and
gymnastics classes at Montcalm
Community College as well as
being a public relations assistant
there.
Inside:
—Mount Pleasant air
commuter service in
operation—page 3
—Blue Oyster Cult
concert canceled,
refunds available—page
3
—Volleyball, galore in
store for finch Thur-
sday—page 10
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