GSD Faculty Peruses Options As Panel Bars Proposed Study

The Architecture Department faculty in the Graduate School of Design is "in the process" of deciding what action to take following last week's rejection of its request for a University investigation of the GSD, a departmental official said yesterday.

Last Tuesday the GSD's committee of chairmen--to which the department's March 16 request had been directed--declined to forward Architecture's request for President Bok to look into the troubled school.

Instead, the five-member committee, which includes GSD Dean Maurice D. Kilbridge, the principal target of the proposed investigation, returned the request to the department for reconsideration.

"Atmosphere of Tension"

Signaling the first public involvement of the GSD faculty in a controversy that enveloped the school last month, the departmental faculty unanimously passed a resolution in mid-March asking the committee of chairmen to inform Bok of the "atmosphere of tension and distrust" at the school and "to request a full investigation."

The resolution also accused Kilbridge of making "controversial and contradictory statements" that have "aggravated" the already tense situation at the school.

Department Confused

Ralph D. Bennett, assistant professor of Architecture and assistant chairman of the Architecture Department, said yesterday that the department is confused by the committee's rejection. "We don't know whom to go to," he said.

Bennett declined to specify what alternative moves the department is considering, explaining that it is in a "quite delicate situation" that he said requires keeping departmental deliberations confidential.

But Bennett did question the merit of a major appeal to the Overseers' visiting committee, which is scheduled to come to the school April 26, saying that the committee "has not demonstrated any particular friendliness to the department in the past."

Kilbridge said yesterday that the committee of chairmen reached its decision "by consensus," declining to specify how individual members of the panel reacted to the proposal.

Divided Panel

William F. Wilson, a third-year architecture student, said earlier this week that the panel had divided between those who wanted to hear more about the department's proposal and criticisms and those who did not take them seriously.

The department's mid-March resolution grew from a conflict that erupted a week before with dissemination in Gund Hall of a newspaper account of remarks Kilbridge made in Seattle, Wash., in mid-February. That account, challenged by the dean but substantiated by two witnesses, quoted the dean as saying faculty members "generally stop learning at the age of 35."

The school has been relatively quiet since vacation, and Bennett stressed yesterday that "none of us here have an appetite for this kind of confrontation." He added, "We are much more interested in work."