Daily ® Trojan
University of Southern California
Volume LXVIII, No. 7	Los Angeles, California	Thursday, September 25, 1975
Tuition suits will be dropped by students for lack of support
MOVE FROM LAWN
Psych students get classroom
A suitable classroom has finally been located for about 100 students in an introductory psychology class who have been meeting outdoors and braving temperatures often in excess of 90 degrees for the past two weeks.
The students in Perry London’s Psychology 200 class discovered during their first meeting that the room they were assigned to could accommodate only half of them.
Since that time, they have been meeting on the lawn of KerckhofT Hall, 734 W. Adams Blvd., while the university tried to locate a larger room that was available.
London was notified Wednesday that the class will be held in . Twogood Auditorium in Heritage Hall starting Monday, the next scheduled meeting.
The auditorium, which holds 140 people, is located on the main floor on the north side of the building, said Ray George, an assistant athletic director.
The original room could accommodate only 56 of the more than 100 students present.
“The room was nice, and even air-conditioned, but it just could not hold that many students, so I quickly got the preliminaries out of the way and dismissed class before anyone fainted,” London said.
He said he asked the Psychology Department to find a bigger room, and they in turn asked the Department of Special Services to locate one.
“Special Services said no rooms were available and told me to allow only half of the 109 students to stay in the class, but I refused to do it,” he said.
The Psychology Department had requested a larger room on Aug. 15, but the 13 largest classrooms or auditoriums that Special Services assigns were already taken.
Special Services said a room was available to the class if it was willing to meet three days a
week for one hour instead of the scheduled two days a week-for two hours, but members of the class did not want to change times.
Finally the office of John Cantelon, vice-president for undergraduate studies, entered the scene and arranged for the auditorium in Heritage Hall.
George said Twogood Auditorium is usually used for athletic meetings and is not utilized for general classroom use. But he said the room should be more than adequate for London’s class.
Some students had complained of the inconvenience of walking to KerckhofT Hall.
Gary Dragovich, a junior in biology, was one of those who had been concerned with the
15-minute walk to KerckhofT. “I don’t like it, but I’m not going to drop the class,” he said at the
time.
Robin Deemer, a sophomore in journalism, said parking near the hall had been a problem.
London said he wanted to have the class meet at Founders Hall or Von KleinSmid Center until a suitable room could be found, but the Psychology Department said that he could not
He said it would have been easier for him to walk a half-mile to campus from his office in the Psychological Research and Service Center (KerckhofT Hall) rather than make the students go to KerckhofT Hall.
He said he didn’t know who in the Psychology Department had objected to the idea.
Wage settlement due for 19 women profs
A final agreement on a possible $70,000 wage settlement for 19 faculty women should be signed very soon, Barbara Pearson, director of affirmative action, said Wednesday.
The settlement stems from charges by the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor that the university discriminated against 19 faculty women by paying them less than men who did similar work.
Pearson said the university and the Wage and Hour Division are substantially in agreement on the settlement but that a few details in the wording of the written agreement must still be worked out.
Details of the agreement may be released sometime next week, she said.
The 19 faculty members involved are all tenured associate or full professors in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the School of Education.
Last March, the division requested that the university pay the women back pay and salary increases totalling about $70,000. The request was based on a statistical study provided by the university in the fall of 1972.
The request carried no legal impact but there was a possibility of court action if an agreement could not be reached.
It is uncertain whether the investigation was routine or prompted by complaints from faculty women. Conflicting reports have been given.
The Los Angeles Times reported in March that the investigation was spurred by complaints from women professors that they were underpaid.
However, the Daily Trojan reported in May that most of the women seemed unaware that their salaries were lower than those of their male colleagues, and others said they were satisfied with their pay.
By Sherie Stark
staff writer
Two class-action suits totalling $5 million that charged the university with illegally raising tuition, will be dropped this week by the plaintiffs.
The suits, which were filed in
1972,	are being dismissed because all the students who initiated the suits have graduated and no organized opposition to _ the tuition hikes has surfaced to continue the legal action.
Carl M. Franklin, vice-president for legal affairs, was out of town and could not be reached for comment.
The suits, filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of law students and undergraduates, were based on a section of the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities that appears in SCampus.
The statement reads: “No increase in tuition or fees shall be made without prior discussion with the students through their official representatives.
“The student has the right to a full statement of tuition and fees for which he is liable, and to be informed, as extensively as possible, how such monies are spent.”
The university was allegedly guilty of a breach of contract on both counts.
From the time the suits were initially filed until the last legal action taken more than a year ago, the suits were tied up by a series of pretrial procedures and delays.
In the Daily Trojan, Nov. 30,
1973,	the spokesman of the Tuition Action Committee, the group initiating the suits, accused the university of engaging in strategy designed to delay the cases as long as possible.
By law, the suits would have had to come to trial within five years ofthe time they were filed (by 1977).
Mike Runzler, a teaching assistant in broadcast journalism and the plaintiff who signed for the undergraduate suit, was the last of the students involved to graduate. Runzler, who graduated in June, said that he received a letter last summer asking for a meeting of the students to determine future action, but that the other students had not kept in touch and he no longer could pursue the suits.
“Even though the cases weren’t followed through, I think that the suits made the administration realize that they have a commitment to the students,” Runzler said. “The students can’t—or maybe I should say shouldn’t—be milked by the university.”
In response to the suits, the administration did name nine students to the 19-member panel that recommended a $210 increase in tuition for the 1974-75 academic year, although none of the students approved the increase.
At the time, a spokesman ofthe Tuition Action Committee said that he considered this a token move on the part of the university, because the students had no
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GERONIMO—Mark Van Mourick, a sophomore in business administration, dangles from the top of the Student Union in an effort to publicize the Mountaineering Club. The demonstration was part of the Activities Fair held Wednesday. The fair continues today from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Alumni Park. DT photo by Bob Selan.
COOL VIBES—Students who sat out in the sun, or preferably in the shade Wednesday, were entertained by the music of Mustard Seed Faith. The noon concert was the first one this year. As the hot day dragged on
and as the musicians played, many students just relaxed and gathered energy for the afternoon. DT photo by Bob Selan.