trojan
Volume LXXXX Number 3	University of Southern California	Tuesday, June 23, 1981
Plan increases input in student fee process
By Eric Vincent
Staff Writer
The student senate has passed a plan for the restructuring of the student fees, giving students increased input in the manner in which funds from the fees are spent.
This fee structure change was developed by Ralph Kam, a member of the Student Senate and was a result of the discovery last fall that Vice President for Student Affairs, James Appleton, had removed $28,000 frons the student health center’s budget and placed it into the budget of residential life and black student services.
The present fee structure provides $45 for the Student health and counseling center, $7 for the student programming fee; $4 for the Norman Topping Student Aid Fund and a $10 fee which all foreign students must pay. These fees are paid by each student along with their fee bills each semester.
Under the newly proposed plan, students will pay $50 for Student health and counseling, an $11 fee for student government (which simply is an incorporation of the previous programming fee and Topping aid fee) and a $13 student services fee.
The $10 fee for international students has been dropped.
Overall, this will mean an increased $15 in the total fees which students will pay next over last 3ars.
In general, there are to be no major changes made in the student health and counseling fee or in the Norman Topping and Programming fees.
It is the student services fee which represents the major shift in the student fee program.
“For the new student services fee, I think we have unprecident-ed influence on how those monies from that fee wall be spent," said Andrew Littlefair, a student senator.
A joint committee has been formed between the student senate and the academic affairs office which is composed primarily of students, whose purpose is to examine the budget of student services and to make reccomendations to Appleton as to the allocation of funds to the various services.
“We have insured that monies that are supposed to be going to the student health center will be going to the student health center and monies that are supposed to go to the student activities center will be going to them. In the past, that wasn’t really guaranteed,” Littlefair said.
The student services fee will be used to pay for or support the escort service, the Westwood tram or monies for computer systems in the Student Administrative Services.
Lasers: future lights of the world, professor predicts
After 21 years of performing wonders — from repairing the human eye to cutting steel — lasers have only begun to light up our world.
That’s the prediction of laser pioneer Elsa Garmire, professor of electrical engineering and physics and associate director of the Center for laser Studies at the university.
“It’s just a matter of time and society’s research priorities,” Dr. Garmire says, “before laser technology enables the average person to have picture-phones and video computers that enable him to do office work, read material in the library and exchange instant mail without leaving home.
“Likewise, as a result of laser developments, computers will have exciting new potentials because they will function a hundred times faster than they do today.”
Garmire, a 1961 Harvard alumna with a 1965 physics doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is generally regarded as the “first lady of lasers” because she was the only woman scientist in the first generation of laser researchers.
She worked as a research fellow at Caltech from 1966 to 1974, when she joined USC’s laser center — which now has 18 laser scientists focusing on industrial and government assignments in
10	laboratories equipped with lasers ranging from pinhead-size to the dimensions of railroad freight car.
(For those still in the dark about laser: The word “laser” stands for 7ight amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.
The laser is a device that converts light into a highly concentrated beam. The laser beam can be transmitted great distances with little diffusion, thus allowing science and industry to control and use energy in ways never before possible. Laser light is to natural light what the pure sound of a tuning fork is to the noise you hear between stations on a radio.)
’’One of the most exciting laser frontiers for me,” Garmire says, “is fiber optics. When this field is sufficiently developed — perhaps in only a few years — glass fibers transmitting optical (laser) signals will have a capacity ultimately a thousand times greater than the wires now used in communiction.”
Garmire explains that, by multiplying today’s information-trans-
(Continued on page 7)
NEW FRONTIER
Prof explores political economy
As the dividing line between politics and economics becomes increasingly blurred, academic disciplines and tools of analysis must be adapted, said John Elliott, a professor in the university's department of economics.
‘‘Educationally speaking, we’re on the frontiers of the subject of political economy,” Elliott said. “Combined programs in economics and political science are just now emerging in leading universities These programs are innovative, topical and applicable to today's world.
“In all areas, reality is neither purely economic nor purely political.”
Examples of political economy in action, he said, include the United States using grain embargoes as a political weapon against Russia, or courting Japan as a world ally while insisting the country restrict its export of automobiles.
“We see it in national elections and in President Reagan’s budget,” Elliott said. “We see it in relations between economically developed countries and Third World nations. We see it in East-West relations between communist and Wer.tem countries.
“The world is a seamless
web. It does not know the artificial divisions of academic life.”
Recently presenting him with an Excellence in Teaching award, President James H. Zumberge said: “Elliott has had a major impact on his discipline. He is a leader, perhaps the leader, in the growing movement toward political economy.”
Elliott’s extensive writing and teaching in the emerging field have earned him a national reputation.
During the past several years, he has helped develop numerous interdisciplinary programs at the university, and his efforts to integrate economics with politics, history and social philosophy have resulted in the development of two new degree programs.
One of the programs offers political economy as an option for the Ph.D. in economics. The other leads to a master’s or doctoral degree in political economy and public policy. The latter curriculum is currently offered by the departments of economics and political science, but future plans call for additional input from the School of International Relations.
“This will open up new op-
portunities for graduates to enter government service or join international organizations, such as the United Nations or the World Bank, with a background in both economic analysis and in political and international study,” Elliott said. “Academic employment will also, I think, call for more and more interdisciplinary teaching.”
The 48-year-old Los Angeles native traces his interest in the combined disciplines of economics and political science to his undergraduate days at Occidental College, where he said he gained “A very strong, classic liberal arts education.”
In the early 1950s, he tqok the rare step of creating his own double major in graduate work at Harvard University, earning a master’s degree in political science and a Ph.D. in economics.
He joined this university’s faculty immediately after leaving Harvard and has remained here for 25 years. “USC’s flexibility in curriculum and program development has given me many opportunities to pursue my interest in interdisciplinary programs,” Elliott said.
The professor noted that political economy is not entirely (Continued on page 5)