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Show From Football To Prexy jock into a successful student, John says, "The words 'liberal arts' kind've struck a chord. There are no TA'i (teacher assistants) and classes of 15 to 17 students. You can learn a lot better at least 1 did. The emphasis is on teaching, not research. That's why I think it will survive." WHILE IN office, John placed emphasis on getting a more sure footing for funding, expanding the intramural sports program and improving the yearbook, among other things. His vice president was Patricia Mclntire of Centervil- le, w ho also sat on the board of trustees. Students are generally most concerned about gaining a solid education at Westminster, Westmins-ter, where they're faced with a tuition far higher than the University Uni-versity of Utah, for example. In fact, he compared the difference differ-ence between the two schools as "day and night" in his observation. "THERE ARE no bells at Westminster (announcing class changes). It's flexible. If a class went long, the students stayed. 1 don't see how they (students at the 'U') could get involved in a conversation with the teacher where there were (often) hundreds of students stu-dents (in a class). "At Westminster, teachers are the kind that will meet you in their office. All of them have a real concern. If they see someone's having trouble they will put their arm around them and ask if they can help," John says. "I DON'T know if you can put a dollar value on it. It depends de-pends on the motivation for going to college. It seems a lot go to the 'U' because they want a continuation of high school. If you want an education, educa-tion, there's no school like Westminster." Lake many other graduates. John is out pounding the pavement pave-ment in search of a job and may pursue further studies fora law degree. He'll have to go somewhere some-where else for that, however, since Westminster has no law program as of yet. JOHN DECHART By TOM BL'SSELBERG BOUNTIFUL College usually changes a student, some, but in the case of the former Westminster College studentbody president, it's been enough to bring him full circle. FOR BOL'NTIFUL'S John Dechart, football was of paramount para-mount concern through hihg school and into his first year at the four-year, 1,300 student school. Bui that was all to change. And today, he can look back as a graduate with deep insight into goings-on at the region's only private, non-church non-church affiliated school. Dropping the school's football foot-ball program meant John had to turn to something else (besides (be-sides his schoolwork) with talking second place for quite a while, he confesses. That "something else" turned out to be a post as justice judiciary in his sophomore year leading to vice president the next and studentbody president as a senior. IN THE two latter posts he's served as a member of the board of trustees and had a chance to see the inner workings work-ings of a school that has seen troubled times, financially, and still isn't into the clearing. "I can't believe a military buildup is (considered) more important than education," he says. "Our president (C. David Cornell) says one-fourth one-fourth of the private schools will go under." MANY thought Westminster Westmins-ter would lead the way two years ago when attention was hasn't been the case and credits cre-dits the church with possibly "saving us right now," financially. finan-cially. Besides money, the school needed an infusion showing what direction should be taken to keep it viable. Much of that has come from Dr. Douglas W. Steeples, academic vice president presi-dent and dean of faculty, John says. "He's taken a lot of steps that should've been taken before be-fore such as new general requirements. re-quirements. It's just a basic lesson in economics. If you don't have enough people, you can't do it (progam)." . AND WHILE the critics have claimed the traditional liberal li-beral arts emphasis has been in danger of being throw n out he says, "Dr. Steeples has taken every step to keep liberal arts (going)." and a student vote of no confidence brought on by plans not to reassign two teachers brought out only 18 percent of the studentbody, raising another concern. "When that no vote came it was a real personal crisis. I'd been working so hard. They didn't accomplish anything (by the vote). I think people didn't have anything better to do." ADMITTING he kind of "fell into" behavior science as a major, he says he feels students stu-dents who raised such questions ques-tions were often left with too much free time rather than studying. The nursing and accounting students, for instance, inst-ance, didn't have time for such concerns but were too busy studying. Stressing that for him Westminster West-minster motivated a former focused on the east side school to raise funds and implement changes in emphasis that might help save it. "It seems the biggest big-gest response was when we had that problem two years ago. I'm not sure they're projecting pro-jecting a true picture (that all is okay now). "If people still want to donate don-ate for right now, it's up to private citizens," he adds, noting not-ing he doesn't feel any state support will be forthcoming. THE RESPONSE from some has helped in that change, though, such as in the efforts of LDS Church leader N. Eldon Tanner, who recenly was honored hon-ored by the school. Indicating he was like some non-LDS who claimed the church might try to interfere with school affairs, he emphasizes that |