BY VALERIE NELSON
Staff Writer
In recommending a speed-reading course for university endorsement, the Learning Skills and Development Center used invalid means of testing and interpreting test results, said Michael Kain, a representative of the Educational and Industrial Research. Inc., and a student in the School of Business.
Kain said students are being shortchanged by their inability to take part in other programs besides the one offered by the Institute of Research and Development, the university-endorsed program.
In order to judge the five companies who wanted the endorsement, university students were used in the Fall of 1974 in a mock testing session.
Kain said a representative from his company was approached by a learning skills center representative and asked if he minded leaving because there were not enough students to accommodate the five companies present.
Another testing session was promised to be scheduled in the spring. Kain said.
“We never promised to test anyone
Invalid testing charged in reading course endorsement
again. We said we would try and arrange for another session and we are still trying to make arrangements,” said Stephen C. Cheney, assistant director of the center.
The accusations are false and the company is just trying to get on campus, said Robert D. Arias, the center's director.
“My concern is the rip-off of students. If you look in the December, 1972 issue of Psychology Today you will find an evaluation of the research program Kain represents that says it is ineffective and bad," Arias said.
The Psychology Today article was misleading because it talked about one semester at Redlands when the research program was plagued by the flu, Kain said.
The program Kain represents was asked to return to Redlands the following semester and experienced good results, he said.
Kain said the 1974 testing session results were compiled and sent to other schools and a letter was sent out with it saving the study was done for in-house purposes and the results may have been misleading.
“Speed reading is a relatively new field with many new firms that give minimal results,” Kain said.
He said the program the university endorses is one of the inexperienced firms and claims his firm is one ofthe best in the field.
Cheney studied the results of the 1974 testing session to determine w hich company would be endorsed. Kain said.
The findings from that session are not supportive of the final outcome—that the Institute of Research and Development received the endorsement, said Robert A. Jones, director of the Testing Bureau.
The statistics were interpreted in such
a way that an error could have easily been made. Jones said.
“If the statistics were interpreted differently. the same conclusions might have been reached, but 1 would feel uncomfortable walking into a professional meeting without re-evaluating the method used,” Jones'said.
Kain said he wants to know why the Institute of Research and Development's program is still being endorsed by the university if this is true.
“I want to know, as a student and a company representative, why there is no choice of companies offered by the university to give students the best for their money,” Kain said.
Arias said the program Kain represents insists on going through improper channels to get on campus.
“If we let this company on campus, how can we stop any company from coming on campus?” Arias asked.
“Programs masquerade on campus as university-approved. The research program (Kain’s) did not participate in the testing session and is the worst ofthe four companies currently on campus,” Arias said.	(continued	on	page	9)
Educational priorities praised by accreditors
BY VIVIEN HAO
The university has made substantial progress in almost every educational area, concluded a report by the Accrediting Commission of the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges.
That was the major strength cited in the 1976 reaffirmation of accreditation report. The last evaluation was done in 1971.
The university was called “an institution with a proud tradition and a strong commitment to excellence.”
The report said that although the university shares a series of problems with all other educational institutions, “the faculty, staff, administrators and students are aware of these problems and are approaching them with a determination to build a better institution.”
The university’s educational program priorities were called sound and sensible. These include strengthening of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and undergraduate instruction, reorganization and strengthening of continuing education and inauguration of interdisciplinary programs, such as the Annenberg School of Communications.
Commendations were awarded to the “considerable progress that has been made in improving campus ambience, in efforts to define and redefine the goals of the university and in the concern for improvement of the quality of teaching and matters related to undergraduate instruction.
The report said the university has successfully broadened the socio-economic and ethnic distribution of its student body. It pointed out that 30% of all undergraduates are students from minority ethnic groups.
An area where clarity was lacking was the division of administrative responsibilities among the several vice-presidents. This and the lack of clarity regarding the position of the provost has resulted in an unusually high number of newly appointed deans and interim and acting administrative officers. This has brought about “a lack of continuity in administrative leadership,” the report said.
While the report commended the university for providing leadership in the development of new modes of governance, it pointed out that some faculty have expressed concern that the President’s Advisory Council (PAC) will dilute the voice of the faculty. Others have viewed the PAC “as a limiting factor in the development of an active student government.”
The management of the university was deemed fiscally conservative and “in the past several decades (it) has served the university well and brings it into the present period of academic stringencies in a sounder fiscal position than most comparable comprehensive private universities.”
Another area of commendation concerned harmonious relation-
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Daily §§) Trojan
Volume LXX, Number 32
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California Wednesday, November 3, 1976
Budget group to evaluate proposed 4.24% tuition hike
BY PETER FLETCHER
Assistant City Editor
A preliminary suggestion for a 4.24% tuition hike for the 1976-77 academic year was accepted Monday by the Budget Commission ofthe President’s Advisory Council, said J. Jerry W’iley, the commission’s chairman.
The figure is only preliminary and was established so the commission can determine whether it would balance the budget, Wiley emphasized.
The commission has only analyzed the revenue side of the budget and no figure can be commented on until the university’s expenditures are examined, he said.
The increase would raise tuition by about $5 per unit.
“While I do not yet have all the information needed to make a prediction, it is my estimate that the tuition increase will be somewhat smaller than last year’s 9.26% increase. Until we get the figure we can’t say how much,” Wiley said.
There was no explanation of how they arrived at the figure. He said the figure might be right, but there was no attempt to justify the figure w'ith a full-blown analysis of the budget.
The commission should get a report on the university’s expenses for the past year and the projected expenses for the upcoming year on Monday.
“Until we get all the components, we can’t put the pieces together,” he said. But he emphasized that the commission must arrive at a figure for a tuition
increase that will balance the university’s budget. Otherwise, the university would be forced to go into its reserves, which are small. Wiley said.
“I want to see it work out so that it is high enough to keep the faculty and low enough to keep the students,” he said.
Wiley said the commission started with the understanding that it would back up and evaluate all its steps to insure they were correct. He said the 4.24% increase figure gives the commission a good starting point. The students on the commission should be commended for suggesting the figure so that the process of evaluating the budget with a specific figure could begin. Wiley said.
The commission can use the figure and make a series of computations to see if it would be adequate to balance the budget. If it is not, the commission can adjust accordingly, Wiley said.
William Dauster. a student member of the commission moved for the figure to be accepted and Glenn Sonnenberg, Student Senate chairman, seconded the motion, Wiley said.
Sonnenberg said the 4.24% figure is a reasonable one and one that he hopes is accepted.
“We believe in being reasonable and as inflation goes up so w'lll tuition,” he said.
“It’s a good, fair figure. I’m satisfied. We have to keep our costs down. I’m hoping the figure comes out of the board the same.”
Sonnenberg also said that only the revenue figures had been looked at in formulating the figure.
Students end campaign efforts with champagne
BY DIANE SLEZA v
Assistant City Editor
The razor-thin margin separating Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter caused a flurry of last-minute efforts by the university’s student political organizations to get voters to the polls Tuesday afternoon.
But in the midst of calling voters and distributing pamphlets, the chairmen of some of the organizations started the victory' party early with a bottle of champagne.
Hunt Braly, Trojan Young Republicans president: Nick Krantz, chairman of Students for Carter; and Louise Hitchock and Rick Meyers, cochairmen of the Young Libertarian Alliance; lifted their glasses in front of Tommy Trojan Tuesday to celebrate the near end of the campaign before they dashed off to call a few more voters.
Students who have been working for the presidential candidates and Proposition 14, the farm workers initiative, spent the two days before the election trying to make sure voter apathy was reduced among students.
The Trojan Young Republicans and other student supporting the ticket of Gerald R. Ford-Robert Dole worked most of Monday and Tuesday distributing leaflets and calling students who had expressed a Republican leaning, said Hal Furman, a senior in political science who is California coordinator for the Youth for Ford campaign.
Furman said Braly and Tom Stillwell, USC coordinator for the Ford campaign, had enlisted people to call all students who had either registered Republican or had expressed an interest in Ford.
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BETWEEN THE LINES — Lindsay Brookman, a freshman with an undeclared major, studies her sample ballot while voting. DT photo by Mark Kariya.
STEP RIGHT UP — Students prepare to vote in Elisabeth Von KleinSmid Memorial Hall, which served as a polling location for Tuesday's election. DT photo by Mark Kariya.