Volume LXX, Number 3
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
Wednesday, September 22, 1976
Staff caucus charges job data inadequate
BY PATTI WOLF
staff Writer
A charge that the Personnel Office at the university has no viable source of dis-. seminating job opportunities to current staff employees has been voiced by the Staff Women's Caucus.
The only way staff persons receive information about job openings is through a bulletin published by the Personnel Office. Employees who take the initiative can go to the office and request job information.
Elizabeth Koochoo. Affirmative Action representative for the caucus, said the bulletin is published every four to six weeks.
“The bulletin is out of date, not systematic and inadequate." she said.
A majority of staff employees do not see the bulletin when it is published, Koochoo believed because not all department heads post the document. The bulletin is sent to 165 locations, but its posting is not mandatory.
Koochoo said not all jobs open to staff employees are listed in the bulletin.
Staff employees are paid and receive benefits accordingtotheir ranking. Atthe university, the ranking is from 1 to 12. Levels 6 to 12 include professional, managerial and supervisorial positions. The lower grades include clerical, technical and food service jobs.
"Only grades six and above are listed in the bulletin so the secretary at level four cannot find out if there is a job opening at level five." Koochoo said.
The caucus, which is the only staff employee organization at the university, has requested a bulletin board in the Personnel Office that will be updated daily.Koochoo said the new bulletin board should list all job openings.
Jack Schneider, director of personnel, disputed the claims ofthe caucus. He said the staff group never requested that a bulletin board be updated daily. Also he said, a listing of all staff positions was never mentioned to him.
"There is a definite lack of communication." Schneider said.
Schneider said he believed the caucus asked only for a place where the bulletin would be posted.
“And we have a bulletin board in the office,” he said. “We plan to install a protective glass box in the hallway where the bulletin can be posted without being stolen.”	X
The bulletin does list some jobs lower than level six, Schneider said. He mentioned a lab technician opening and a secretarial position that are ranked at level five. But he admitted that the majority of positions in the bulletin were at level six and above.
Schneider also disputed that the bulletin is the only avenue for obtaining job information. Persons may call dial-a-job and a two-minute tape will summarize all available staff positions.
Dial-a-job is a service provided by the university to inform interested persons about job openings. The Personnel Office gathers the job information and places it on tape.
The bulletin, which averages 10 pages, is published every 2 to 3 weeks, he said. The current bulletin was published Sept.
1.
Schneider agreed with the caucus that many department heads do not post the bulletin.
The director said he has tried to solve the job information dissemination problem by placing a box in the Daily Trojan listing job availabilities. But he said he has been unsuccessful.
Marc Nowadnick. Daily Trojan editor, said space limitation is the reason job positions cannot be printed in the newspaper.
The Personnel Office places persons in permanant, full-time positions. Students who work part time or have work-study jobs are not affected by the bulletin.
FRESHMEN?—Two upcoming USC students study the class schedule so they won't encounter closed classes like the rest of us when they enroll. Friendly scenes such as this are often overlooked as students rush about during the first week of school. DT photo by Mike Ito.
Aid review requests decline
The number of students requesting reviews of their financial aid awards has substantially decreased over that of a year ago, said James Jones, acting director of Student Administrative Services.
Review requests have been received for about 89c of the total number of awards sent out. And Jones said the requests seem to be tapering off.
Of the appeals, Jones said about 50% of the packages that have been reviewed are being revised. “We have worked to improve the packages as best as we can with the guidelines that we have,” he said.
The office is still issuing award letters because of late changes in the financial status of some students, Jones said. As a result of this, some students have had to wait to pay their fee bills. Jones said that in such a case the payment ofthe fee bill is deferred so that the student is not hit with late payment fees.
Jones added that the error rate in award letters is down to virtually zero, which he said is a vast improvement over the past.
He said a delay in processing the fee bills of many of the university’s teaching assistants resulted because the aid office put the emphasis in the wrong place and it encountered problems it wasn’t prepared for.
He said the delay has been cleared up. The individual departments asked for awards for 686 T.A.s. So far, 426 awards have been made and the rest will be made in the next few days, he said.
Jones did not have the final figures on enrollment but he said the size of the freshman class should be about the same—about 2600—and the total enrollment of the university should remain constant—about 24,000 students, regardless of the number of units carried by each.
Corps marches to different beat
Students who are tired of parties with routine entertainment and who have $300 an hour to spend might consider a novel form of entertainment for a change of pace.
No, we’re not talking about what you think. We’re talking about the Culpepper Minutemen.
No, they’re not an off-shot of Kiss. They’re a fife-and-drum band.
“I’m not sure, but I think we may be the only fife-and-drum band in the whole state” said Stu Heinecke, 21, a senior in business at the university.
Stu and his brother Eric both play the fife. Eric is also a business major. Rounding out the group are Tom Verdegem on the snare drum and Nick Trujillo on the barrel drum.
The Culpepper Minutemen formed in January and they have been on the go ever since. They have flown all over the state to perform, were featured on a Metro News segment, appeared on the KCET telethon and made station breaks for NBC this past summer.
“Most people on campus have probably seen us,” Stu said. “We played last year at a picnic on campus and at the flagpole one day. We think that a fife-ard-drum band has more appeal than solely a Bicentennial one.”
Performing songs from the revolutionary and Civil War eras, the minutemen nonetheless consider their show unconventional and always draw a good reaction from the crowds they entertain, Heinecke said.
Representing USC wherever they go, the minutemen want to form a fife-and-drum organization here on campus. The Heinecke brothers grew up in Boston, where they played
in fife-and-drum bands for 15 years.
The other members of the band have musicial backgrounds also. Tom Verdegem was the number-one snare drummer in the Trojan Marching Band and Nick Trujillo’s father is a professional musician in Las Vegas.
The minutemen also have international appeal. They have been invited to perform in Brazil and Switzerland next summer.
“While we were playing back east this summer,” Stu said, “the secretary of the Swiss National Fife and Drum Corps heard us and offered to pay half of the plane fare and give us room and board.
So we figured we might as well visit some other countries in Europe while we are there, so we’re trying to raise money to help with expenses. Since we will be representing USC we’re hoping the alumni will help us out.”
The minutemen have also been invited to perform at the Edinburgh Castle Military Tatoo. It will be the first time the event has been recreated in the United States, and it will take place in San Francisco.
Other events in the future include an appearance at homecoming.
“We ll have our own booth and hope to have a videotape machine to show people what we’ve done,” Stu said.
Possible upcoming engagements for the minutemen are an appearance in some Disney parades, a spot on the Tonight Show and a fife-and-drum disco recording.
These last few things are tentative, but the way things have been going for the Culpepper Minutemen, nothing is impossible.
THE BRITISH ARE COMING—No, it's not a scene from the days of Paul Revere, it's just the Culpepper Minutemen with President Hubbard. The minutemen are a fife-and-drum corps, probably the only one of its kind in the state, that offers a unique form of entertainment. DT photo by Robert Barclay.