Benefits Question Not Yet Settled

In your issue of May 29, 1995, you reported an interview with President Neil L. Rudenstine in which the president was reported to have said that "the University [was] now in good shape on the benefits issue." It appears that there must be a mistake, either in your reporting of the president's remarks or in the president's perception of the views of members of the faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).

The FAS considered both the report of its Benefits Committee and the Corporation's adverse response at its meeting of May 2. In a unanimous vote, they endorsed the report of the committee, an action which was equivalent to rejecting the rebuttal arguments of the Corporation. When the representatives of half the total faculty of the University take such action after seriously discussing the issues involved over a semester, it is doubtful that the situation can or would be described in the terms reported in The Crimson.

It should also be emphasized most strongly that the faculty objections went for beyond the details of the benefits question, which The Crimson has mistakenly chosen to emphasize as the focus of faculty-administration tensions. They involve the restoration of genuine consultation and collaboration, as distinct from the misrepresented and discredited consultative procedures of 1994. This is an issue which is not going to go away, since decision involving the best use of the resources of the University in accomplishing its missions of education and research must involve the faculty as well as the administration. William Paul   Mallinckrodt Professor of Applied Physics