Daily ii Troian
Volume LXXII, Number 49
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
Friday, December 2, 1977
Ford commends peace efforts by Sadat, Begin at press conference
By Gail Asayama	The press conference was part of Ford’s
By Gail Asayama
Staff Writer
Former President Gerald R. Ford expressed his congratulations to President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel at a press conference at the University Hilton Hotel.
“I strongly congratulate President Sadat for his initiative both in going to Israel, and his calling of the Cairo conference. I congratulate Prime Minister Begin for his response,” Ford said.
Ford said he believed this is an initiative that could be very productive. He said he hoped the Carter administration would be as responsive as it would be helpful, but the basic initiative would have to come from the two parties involved and any other participants.
Ford said it is regrettable that the other Arab nations turned down Sadat’s invitation to Cairo, but he did not believe that their nonparticipation would reduce the hopes of an agreement between Begin and Sadat.
The press conference was part of Ford’s two-day lecturing visit to the university. The visit began Thursday morning when Ford arrived by motorcade at 34th Street and University Avenue. The motorcade, which arrived at 7:30 a.m., was greeted by a crowd of approximately 30 students and local newsmen.
Ford began the day with breakfast with with John R. Hubbard, university president. Houston Flournoy, dean of the Center for Public Affairs, was also present at the breakfast.
Ford began his lecturing tour with a History 200 class in the Social Science Building. He lectured for approximately 20 minutes on the power of the presidency.
Ford drew on his Congressional and White House experiences as he explained the theory of the three branches of the House of Representatives, where he served under the legislative branch.
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Students seek more representation on academic planning committee
GERALD R. FORD
Computer, staff problems prompt aid improvements
computer. It will simply put a date on it and kick it out because it is incomplete,” Levins said.
In that case, an award has the potential of not being processed or just sitting until someone, maybe the student, notices it, he said. Levins’ grade-point average was omitted from the computer and he said the application went unnoticed for months until an employee in the office saw it.
Another problem cited by Zubair is that a turnover in the staff created a workload problem. “It’s hectic here. We started with seven employees who’ve had less than three (continued on page 3)
By Rori Benka
Staff Writer
Late financial aid awards this year may have been caused by computer foul-ups and staff-related problems which created extra burdens in Student Administrative Services.
Snags in processing applications. a turnover in staff and late applications contributed to a delay for some student awards, said Nancy Zubair, accounts manager in resource development of Student Administrative Services.
These problems, compounded by the usual work overload for financial aid, have prompted the staff to work on a number of improvements for filing and disseminating information.
Some of the data fed into an evaluating computer was done incorrectly. Zubair said, largely because of a system that requires personnel training in both computer and paperwork.
“There was not a good paperwork flow and we don’t have a good mechanism for exchanging information between systems yet,” she said. However, the use of computers has proven to be a vast improvement over last year and provides the most accurate information, she added.
Rick Levins, a sophomore in public administration, who had a work-study job in administrative services operations, has a different view of the handling of the computers.
“They’re so understaffed and things on your file might be overlooked by someone entering the information into the
By Gigi Golden
Staff Writer
More student representation on the Advisory Committee for Academic Planning was one of the topics discussed at the meeting of the Student Affairs Committee of the President’s Advisory Council last week.
The Student Affairs Committee drew up a tentative recommendation to Zohrab Kaprie-lian, executive vice-president, asking that qualified students be considered as members of the advisory committee.
The advisory committee describes itself as a group of university students, faculty and administrators selected to advise the executive vice-president on university matters.
However, there is only one student sitting on the committee. He is Bill Dauster, chairman of the Student Senate.
Dauster does not sit on any of the committee’s seven subgroups.
“We feel there are students with real expertise who can serve in the subgroup areas,” said Glenn Sonnenberg, chairman of the advisory council committee. “If the committee says it has students on it, then
we think there should be students on it.”
Sonnenberg said that the advisory committee is a powerful one in terms of policy implementation. “There is a lot of potential to circumvent PAC on many key issues,” he said.
Dauster said the lack of student representation on the committee is “utterly ndiculous, sitice it professes to be an organization with students listed first."
Because of the advisory committee’s importance, Sonnenberg feels students should be represented by more than just one person.
“Even if the committee is not doing anything to circumvent PAC, there is a perception among students and many faculty that this group is carrying on the work of the PAC or the potential work at least,” Sonnenberg said.
Sonnenberg. who sat on the advisory committee as chairman of the Student Senate last year, said he personally requested at the end of the year that more students serve on the committee. Kaprielian said, at the time, that the matter would be “considered.”
Since that time, no motion has been mad? by the advisory group to include more students.
“There are sensitive issues discussed by the advisory group,” Sonnenberg said. “But certainly two or three responsible students can sit in on the meetings. (That would) geometrically improve the representation of what the ideas (of students) really are.”
Dauster said the lack of student representation on the committee is “utterly ridiculous, since it professes to be an organization with students lioted first (on its description of membership).”
“If they are going to list students as plural,” he said, “they may as well have more than one student,”
Kaprielian said that the lack of students on the committee os “not due to) a lack of desire” for
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Special assistant to president will leave university
By Lynn Sprenger
Staff Writer
Edmund Ackell, a special assistant to President John R. Hubbard on government affairs, is leaving his position at the university to become president of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond on Feb. 1.
The Virginia Commonwealth Board of Visitors (similar to a board of trustees) invited Ackell to the university two weeks ago to offer him the position, after conducting a series of interviews in Richmond and sending a team to talk to faculty and administration here about Ackell.
“I’m very happy about the new opportunity,” Ackell said.
Ackell was vice-president for health affairs here from July 1, 1974 until July 1 of this year, when he took his present position.
As vice-president for health affairs, Ackell said, “What I wanted to do was develop multidisciplinary educational programs and joint research programs as well as affiliations with a number of private hospitals, which would decrease our reliance on the county for funding. Also, I felt the educational programs (for the schools of dentistry, pharmacy and medicine and the division of health-related professions) would be improved through this mechanism.
“But circumstances were such that it was impossible to accomplish. Personnel and politics got in the way and I felt that I could get more personal satisfaction in another situation or another environment.”
Ackell thought that it was when he left the vice-presidency position that he became more actively interested in finding a position elsewhere.
He thinks the Virginia university, which has an enrollment of 19,700, contacted him because of his previous administrative experiences at Case-Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and at the University of Florida.
At Case-Western Reserve, he was involved in planning a new medical center and implementing a new curriculum. As vice-president for health affairs at the University of Florida, he was responsible for major expansion of the health sciences campus there.
He said his new job will be a challenge because, although the health sciences center at Virginia Commonwealth University is nationally recognized, “only a few of the programs in the rest of the university have the quality necessary for a first-rate university.”