Daily ®) Trojan
University of Southern California
Volume LXX, Number 51
Los Angeles, California
Thursday, December 9, 1976
Incompletes not made up in 1 year will count as Fs
CUT THE CAKE—Julie Nebb, a junior in business, serves Brian DuBose, a junior in chemical engineering, at a brown bag lunch sponsored by the Engineering Student Council. DT photo by Rick Stern.
Student drive in United Way campaign doubted
Two student government leaders endorsed the concept of student participation in the campus-wide United Way campaign but doubted the feasibility of a Student Senate-backed drive either before or after the Dec. 17 contribution deadline.
Glenn Sonnenberg, senate chairman, and Hunt Braly, chairman of the Campus Activities Allocation Board, expressed personal sympathy with the program but considered a drive for off-campus organizations out of their groups’ jurisdictions.
“If the chairman of the Board of Trustees can put so much time, effort and personal support into the program, then everyone in the USC community, especially the students, can also in their own way,” Sonnenberg said.
Robert Mannes, dean for student life, contacted the senate with regard to a student drive for funds. But Sonnenberg doubted a program could be actually led and monitored by the senate in the manner of faculty and staff contributions to the campaign.
“I do not believe in pressuring people to make contributions to any cause, no matter how worthy,” Sonnenberg said. “Any
such giving should come from the heart, or not at all.”
Braly, whose group allocates funds for student programming, said funding would not be forthcoming directly from the board. “It is not within our power to use programming funds for a cause, even as important a cause as the United Way.”
Jack Schneider, director of personnel and a member of the United Way campus steering committee, said the committee briefly discussed student participation at its last meeting, agreeing that the focal point for coordinating the drive should be the Student Senate and that a separate schedule of contribution deadlines might be made for students.
BY MARC GROSSMAN
Staff Writer
An incomplete grade not made up within one year of its assignment will be computed as an F in the student’s grade-point average, effective in the spring semester.
The Academic Standards Commission stressed the grade would not physically change to an F, but would simply count as four units of zero grade points.
Presently, an incomplete not made up within one year is changed to a W (Withdrawal).
The new policy was put into effect to combat what the commission called grade inflation. It was argued by the commission that incompletes changed to W were raising grade-point averages.
In a lengthy session Tuesday, Steve Hirsch, probation counselor, vigorously protested the new policy.
“There will be a tremendous increase in the number of students that are unjustly disqualified or placed on probation,” Hirsch said. “We are going to have students who are doing passing work fail because they had an emergency and could not make up the incomplete.”
The majority of the commission’s voting members responded that one year was enough time for an incomplete to be made up.
“The petition says the new policy is not punishment, but I think it is and I think they are punishing the wrong party,” Hirsch said. “I submitted a proposal that would encourage professors to be more careful with the way they assign incompletes. This would decrease the number of incom-
pletes. It’s beyond me why good students should be penalized.”
The commission voted in May to physically change incompletes to Fs after a year’s time. That proposal was struck down at Tuesday’s meeting.
“Students receiving incompletes would have a few options,” said William Hall, registrar. “They could make up or not make up the incomplete and be subject to the new policy, or they could petition the commission to retroactively drop the class. A petition, however, would only be granted in extenuating circumstances.”
Another new policy, effective next semester, was approved by the commission. A student repeating a class will have the two grades averaged into his grade-point average. Currently, the better of the two grades is recorded.
A proposal regarding the changing of time and place of class meetings was submitted to the commission by Tom Verdegem. codirector of the academic affairs unit of the Student Senate.
“In order to allow a student sufficient time to rearrange his schedule and to comply with drop-and-add deadlines, any permanent changes in the stated times and places for class meetings will be announced during the first week of classes,’’ the report stated.
It also said, changes in the times and places of midterm examinations after the first week of classes “can be made only with the unanimous consent of the instructor and all members of the class, subject to the approval of the department chairman and the appropriate dean.”
The proposal was passed unanimously.
Staff representation on PAC questioned
BY CLARA GERMANI
Staff Writer
Organization within the President’s Advisory Council (PAC) and its effectiveness in representing the Staff Caucus has been questioned by Campus Security officers..
An officer who did not want to be identified said he had never heard of, or voted in, the election of a PAC representative. He
added that many of his counterparts in Campus Security do not know who their representative is and had not even heard of the PAC until nine months ago. (The PAC was organized more than two years ago.)
The PAC consists of student, faculty, staff and administrative caucuses. Each caucus contains its own hierarchy of representation. Campus Security falls
Campus Security suggests lottery determine Cardinal Gardens parking
BY DAVID BLACK
Staff Writer
Two proposals affecting students with cars have been announced by Campus Security and Parking Operations.
A lottery aimed at giving students in the Cardinal Gardens apartment complex an equal chance to receive parking spaces within the facility for next semester will be held sometime before semester break. A r/e» security system designed to reduce burglary and theft of cars parked on campus went into effect Wednesday night, said John Lechner, director of Campus Security and Parking Operations.
The decision to have the lottery came in response to student protest over the way parking spaces in the complex were allotted in September, Lechner said.
The procedure, a first-come, first-served system, angered many students who had to settle for paying the same $37.50 fee to park in on-campus facilities.
A separate lottery will probably be held to determine who will receive the 20 tandem parking spaces also in the complex, Lechner said. In all, the complex has 238 spaces.
The tandem spaces consist of two parking spaces, one directly in front of the other. A driver in the front space would have to see that the car behind him is moved before he could back out.
Lechner said the tandem spaces lottery will consist of two students (preferably roommates) entering on the same ticket.
“That way, they’ll both either win or lose, which will eliminate the confusion if only one student won a space,” Lechner said.
The lottery, however, is still subject to legal
clearance. A check with zoning and building codes will have to be made before the lottery can be okayed, I^ectmer said.
Zoning laws require one parking space per apartment, but a check will have to be made to determine whether the laws cover allotment of the spaces as well, he said.
Lechner said the university may have been in violation of the laws this semester.
“Some apartments didn't have any students who had been assigned spaces, while other apartments had more than one student who had been given a space,” Lechner said. “But I'm 99.2% sure the lottery will go through.”
Notices containing the date and more information about the lottery will be posted as soon as the remaining decisions about the procedure are made, he said.
The new security system, consisting of three cigar box-sized transmitters and a monitoring device, were put into use in Parking Structure B, adjacent to Men’s Residence West.
Each of the transmitters, placed in predesignated cars in the structure, are sensitive to movement and certain sound frequencies. The devices will not be available to students, he said.
The transmitters send a radio signal back to the monitoring device at Campus Security headquarters as soon as they are jarred. The monitor sounds a beeping alarm and the dispatcher knows to send an officer.
Campus Security records showed nearly $750 worth of items, mostly radios and tape players, have been stolen from cars parked in Structure B since the start of the semester. Structures A and C
(continued on page 6)
under the staff caucus, which consists of seven representatives. Reporting to these representatives are electors from conferences of staff employees based on a graded pay scale.
The Campus Security elector in Conference 5, Lt. John Ahmanson, said he had heard of no meetings or requests for input from the 60-man force since last March. It was his opinion that the PAC was a type of political puppet working in the name of representation.
“Seven representatives just aren’t enough,” he said, adding “It’s a fantastic pass-the-buck situation.”
He said he never receives reports on meeting times or on what is being accomplished for his constituency.
The Conference 5 representative to the PAC is on a two-month sick leave, and Cathy Van Orman, an elector who works at
the Data Preparation Center, has taken over the post. She said the PAC needs to be better organized.
She said one reason PAC representatives do not communicate with their constituencies is because last year was the first time a list of electors has been given to representatives.
“Our conference is the only conference where electors have met,” Van Orman said. They met a year ago and last March to forward ideas to PAC representatives.
The Campus Security unit is complaining that there has been no feedback to them about what she has accomplished for them in the PAC.
But she said, “There has been nottung to get back to ttve peop\e on," referring to the fact that the PAC has been dealing with budgets in the past few meetings.
ARTS AND CRAFTS—Alfred Birbaum demonstrates the art of origami, making figures out of paper. With the end of the semester rapidly approaching many students are probably wondering if there is a way to turn figures into term papers. DT photo by Mark Kariya.