Daily w Troian
Volume L VIII, No. 48
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
Tuesday, November 25, 1975
| Planning committee OKs tuition hike, sets 9.3% limit
SOME CHRISTMAS PRESENT, HUH?—Tommy Trojan received his usual cover-up Friday following the annual trip by UCLA students to decorate to paint the bronze statue. Maintenance workers cleaned, scraped and wiped the blue and gold paint off the Trojan warrior and wrapped him in clear plastic. Last year, Tommy was clothed in a muslin mummy-wrap, unable to show his Troy spirit. Shown here without his sword, Tommy is expected to display the original one for the game. DT photo by Bob Selan.
By Wayne Walley
associate city editor
The Resource Management and Planning Committee has approved the Budget Commission proposal which recommended a 5.5% to 6.5% tuition hike, but added that if it is impossible to stay within those limits, tuition should, under no circumstances, increase more than 9.3%.
The committee also set a range of 7% to 11% for faculty and staff salary increases.
However, David Shawaker, assistant treasurer and budget officer, said the two proposals combined would actually limit faculty and staff salaries to a 7% to 8% increase and set a parameter of 8.4% to 9.3% for a tuition increase.
"Basically, when you consider the other decision about inescapable commitments, program development and our assumption of a 1.5% increase in enrollment for next year, you end up with those limitations to keep a balanced budget,” Shawaker said.
An increase of 8.4% to 9.3% in tuition would cost students $272 to $300 more per year on a flat tuition basis.
The President's Advisory Council will meet Dec. 5 to ap-
University to study decrease in teenagers’ writing abilities
By Sherie Stark
staff writer
A 2-year university study ofthe trend of diminishing writing skills in American teenagers has been proposed by W. Ross Win-terowd, professor of English.
Winterowd said Monday the study will attempt to determine the causes of the trend and will recommend strategy in teaching techniques to offset the causes.
While the formal proposal for the federal research grant has not been submitted for consideration yet. Winterowd said that it is relatively certain that the study will be funded.
He said that this university is the only one qualified to do a thorough job because of its abundance of trained people in the field, especially in its doctorate program of rhetoric. He and Robert J. Dilligan. assistant professor of English, will be the study’s principal investigators.
"Our analysis of this data should make USC the center of knowledge in the composition process of our youngsters,” he said.
The study will interpret the findings released last week by the Education Commission of the States, which conducts periodic student assessments for the U.S. Office of Education.
The Commission’s study sampled essays by 13-17 year-old students across the country for its report.
Compared with similar tests in
1970.	the study showed a marked polarization of good and bad
writers, with relatively few average writers. The good writers were as good as in 1970: but the poor writer'' were worse and there were more of them, the study reported.
The latest written essays by 17-year-olds showed a simpler vocabulary using fewer words longer than four letters, increased awkwardness and more run-on sentences.
Twenty percent ofthe papers were shorter than four sentences, compared with 13% four years earlier.
Winterowd said that one ofthe reasons for USC’s study is that only a fraction ofthe 80.000 test essays were studied by the commission. and even those were only roughly analyzed.
“We won’t actually be going back to the students to determine the reasons behind the trend, but we do have socio-economic data on them that can help us to hypothesize the important factors.” he said.
While v\ e woi-’t be trying to establish a true < ause-effect relationship. we will seek in-depth explanations of what has happened by using correlational information in the study.”
One of the correlations that Winterowd expects to explore in the study is the popularity of television and the telephone and their effect on the growing dependence on oral rather than written communication.
He said that one ofthe tentative conclusions pointed out in the study is that the immediacy of contemporary media may be
“bringing about a real difference in the way thoughts and perceptions are organized when they are expressed.”
He called for a return to the basics in writing skills to alleviate the problem, stressing that “basics" does not refer to spelling and punctuation as is generally thought by the public. He said that coherence of ideas, development and syntactic fluency are the priorities that should claim educator’s attention.
"The ability to write standard English can well mean power in
(continued on page 6)
prove or revise the planning committee’s recommendations to forward to the Finance Committee of the Board ofTrustees.
"Once again, these are not final decisions, but just another step in the decision-making process. They can either be accepted or changed by the PAC, and then the board could change everything around again,” Jerry Wiley, chairman of the committee said.
Glenn Sonnenberg, a student on the planning committee and the Student Senate, anticipated that the PAC would change the proposal.
“The PAC is 50% faculty. There is no way they will stand for a 7% to 8% raise, and I don’t think students will stand for an increase of more than 8% in tuition. It is a strange situation, and anything may happen,” Sonnenberg said.
The committee defeated four motions concerning tuition— amidst three hours of debate— before attempting to formulate an assumption on an enrollment increase, which would have an affect on the tuition recommendations.
The Budget Commission had assumed a 2% increase in enrollment, but members of the planning committee felt that number was unrealistic.
“I Would like to see it happen, but I do not believe we will realize that assumption,” said William Wagner, the special assistant for academic record services.
“It happened this year, but this is a very unusual year,” he said. “Enrollments are up everywhere, but in my opinion, it is just a fluke and we will paint ourselves into a corner with this type of optimism.”
Solomon Golomb. vice-chairman of the Faculty Senate disagreed with Wagner.
“We have increased our applicant pool, and even if we accept and enroll the same number of freshman as last year, we will have an increase in enrollment assuming that the attrition rate is the same,” he said.
“The freshman class will outnumber our graduating senior class, so you will get a flowthrough effect and a gain in enrollment,” Golomb explained.
After two motions were defeated, the committee compromised and assumed a 1.5% increase in enrollment over this year.
After making this assumption and considering other budgeting factors, they recommended, with no dissenting votes, the Budget Commission’s proposal, but added that if it is absolutely necessary to raise those limitations, the tuition increase should in no way exceed 9.3%.
Wagner would not accept the Budget Commission’s proposals.
“We have modified other Budget Commission proposals. We must first incorporate these and revise the tuition figure
too.” he said.
Joe Mayer, senior fiscal analyst, said a 9% increase in tuition was fair because of the inflation rate.
“Actually, a 9% raise in tuition in current dollars is the same as no increase in real dollars. With inflation things cost more, but wages have increased too,” Mayer said.
“Considering the facts and figures, I have to believe parents and students have about 9% more money to spend than last year in current dollars, so a 9% increase in tuition is appropriate.”
Karen Kennedy, a senior in English, disagreed.
“I am really upset that tuition is the most flexible source of income. Peopl^may have more money to spend, but prices of necessities have gone up too.
"We may as well raise tuition 30%. lose 10% of the enrollment, raise it 40% and just put ourselves deeper in a hole. What is the value of raising tuition?” Kennedy said.
“We have to keep a narrow range so that it proves tuition
(continued on page 8)
Change in structure of PAC discussed by Student Senate
A proposal that representation on the President's Advisory Council be changed to provide lot more student membership was approved Mond.i\ by the Student Senate.
Representation was the only issue discussed at the n>eeting.
A previous resolution had asked for the representation to be changed from the present 50% faculty, 25% student and 25% deans and staff to 40% each for both faculty and students and 20% for deans and staff.
The resolution approved Monday stated that the Student Senate believes that no group should hold a majority ofthe seats on the council. It also stated that the senate faced the realization that it might not be possible to achieve the representation equal ity that the previous proposal asked, but that
in no event should student representation be lower than 33%.
The motion passed without any dissenting votes, but there were a number of abstentions.
The disagreement among the senate centered around the desirability of equality in representation. A number of graduate students expressed the position that students are not permanent. Since the faculty are permanent and scholars in their fields, they said, the faculty should have more representation.
There were about 20 senators present out of the total of 33. Normally there are only about 12 present for the meetings.
David Blackmar. chairman ofthe Student Senate, said that he was pleased with the upsurge in the attendance, especially of the graduate students.