University to suspend Telefund; program will undergo evaluation
By Laura Castaneda
Staff Writer
Telefund, the university’s fund raising program, will be temporarily suspended beginning March 31 because it is losing money, said Michael Ra-dock, senior vice president of Development and University Affairs.
In order to decide whether the program is worth keeping. Telefund will undergo a three-month evaluation during the suspension, Radock said. Heading this evaluation will be Jay Berger, the newly appointed director of the annual program.
The reason for this evaluation is a financial one. “The gifts are not covering expenses,” Radock said. “We are going to evaluate the program to see if we should run it ourselves. We will talk to other schools with this type of program, discuss the problems with it and see how they solved them,” he said.
He explained that the university does not run the current program, but hires an outside company, Philanthropy Management Inc. (PMI), to adminis-
trate the fund raising operation. The university also rents the building w'here Telefund operates and pays for the phone bills.
Telefund is a program that uses phone solicitation to get donations from alumni. It has been in operation for about a year and a half, and it employs about 60 students.
The program initially began as a “Toward Century II” fund raising project and then evolved into an annual solicitation program.
In addition to calling alumni for pledges, employees must also gather and record alumni phone numbers.
‘It’s a very successful program,” said Philip Helms, senior account executive for PMI and acting director from December to February. "We’ve raised about $9 million in pledges in just one and a half years.”
Radock said he believes the program is successful, but must be examined to determine if it can operate at lower costs.
“I consider Telefund a highly successful program.” said Radock. “It’s an effective
form of solicitation and an effective use of students.
“There’s a great deal of promise for the program of phone solicitation. We just have to see how we can save money.”
Radock said that three things should be considered in trying to decide how to save money. They are: proper administration, the possibility of a university-run phone solicitation program and ways to increase the amount of money pledged.
The executive council of the university, made up of the President and vice presidents, made the decision to suspend Telefund. However, Radock stressed, it is only a temporary suspension. “Telefund may be back in one form or another, but we would run it ourselves and under a different name,". Radock said.
According to Helms, many students are disappointed at the suspension of Telefund, and Radock sympathized with them. “I’m disappointed that this year’s Telefund students are out of a job. I hope they can be absorbed into the university,” he said.
Staff photo by Alexis Ignatiefi
BURNT OFFERINGS — Flames of knowledge, in the guise of a trash can fire, bum in front of Doheny Library. Students at the university are often ignited by the spirit of learning that the building represents.
trojan
Volume XCI Number 43
University of Southern California
Tuesday March 16, 1982
Guidelines to save jobs: goal of Staff Assembly:
By Yolanda Austin
Staff Wnter
The Staff Assembly will present to the administration a set of guidelines for staff reductions in order to protect staff jobs from budget cuts proposed for next year.
The assembly made the final revisions on the document at its meeting last Wednesday. The Compensation Committee and Benefits Environment Committee formed the suggestions along with the Assembly Executive Committee in response to budget cuts.
“This (staff reductions) is something that is going to occur,” said Jack Arnold, chairman of the assembly Compensation Committee. “Without our involvement in where the cuts come from, we will have no control over where these cuts occur. We want to protect the staff.”
A Staff Assembly spokesman said the assembly realizes the university hopes staff will be upgraded as it is reduced. The assembly’s proposal hopes to do just that.
Margaret Harrington, director of academic planning and student services of Public Administration, said the action was taken not only to protect staff jobs, but also to bring staff salaries up to a competitive level to attract and maintain quality staff.
“We realize there are a lot of financial pressures that the university is facing. The staff is willing to participate in acting to create a more efficiently run university,” Harrington said.
Steve Wagner, business manager of the School of Engineering’s Information Sciences Institute, said, “I don’t think there’s a department in the university that can’t look at itself in the mirror and not see room for improvement. I don’t think there is anything such as 100 percent efficiency.”
Wagner said the whole issue is related to improving the quality of staff and, through the use of computers and automation, many jobs could be done better.
Although the Staff Assembly proposal aims to “avoid direct layoffs whenever possible.” it makes a provision for staff layoffs.
Originally, the plan called for a 7 percent to 10 percent reduction in staff, but that proposal was amended by the assembly. The group agreed it did not want job cuts across the board.
Some assembly members hope that the blow of layoffs could be softened somewhat. Bob Blechen, Information Sciences Institute administrator, said, “Obviously, if the university chose to. it could guarantee a new job to anyone facing layoffs. That is
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CREDITS TRANSFER TO LAS
Night classes to be reassigned
By Charla Foster
Staff Writer
In an effort to improve the academic quality of classes offered at night, the administration will transfer some credit courses from the College of Continuing Education (CCE) to the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, said Irwin Lieb, provost for LAS.
The classes, regular credit courses offered through the Evening College, will be transferred as of fall 1982 under the administration’s new budgetary plan.
Although the transfer will initially cost the university more than $1 million per year and cause CCE to lose more than 60 percent of its annual income, the transfer should bring academic rewards later, said Lieb, one of the plan’s primary promoters.
“According to my knowledge of the transfer, President (James H.) Zumberge and (senior vice president Cornelius) Pings’ decision to go with the plan was one that was fundamentally academic rather than administrative or financial,” Lieb said.
Although Lieb called CCE’s courses “generally very good,” he added that many of the evening courses were taught by part-time faculty members who were unaffiliated with university on a regular basis.
“When a faculty member teaches on a part-time basis,” Lieb said, “(LAS) departments often lose their associations with these people because they (faculty members) are not available throughout the week to either administrators or students,” he said, adding that this effect undermines the original purpose for offering students night classes.
The transfer hopes to correct this trend, Lieb said.
CCE had first offered regular credit courses to undergraduate students in order to afford them the opportunity to earn a college degree on a part-time basis and at night, the provost said.
“As time went on, more and more courses became available to students through CCE. but many of them were no longer night classes, but classes offered in the late evening, then the after-
noon and finally throughout the day," Lieb said. Eventually this growth became a problem.
Now, with more than 60 percent of the university’s undergraduates taking classes at night, the quality of Evening College classes has become critical, Lieb said.
Under the new policy. LAS department heads intend to hire many new full-time faculty members with the hope of improving class quality and adding revenue to to the various departments within LAS rather than within the College of Continuing Education.
As an example, Lieb said that the anthropology department, if included in the transfer process, will generate more revenues within that department and promote its overall growrth. Thus, the program will cost the university money, but rel-locate evening class tuition funds to the department level.
The transfer will involve between S3.6 million and $6 million in tuition income, and will affect all regular credit courses offered in the Evening College that duplicate or supplement daytime LAS course schedules, administrators said.
The transfer will also cause CCE to lose the majority of its scheduled classes to LAS. CCE will, however, maintain its special programs, such as week-long seminars, continuing education courses, lecture series, credit/non-credit courses and other academic programs. Lieb said.
“I don’t know whether this program will hurt CCE in its other scheduling efforts,” Lieb said.
Lieb said the Evening College offers approximately 30 percent of the credit offerings within the LAS division of Social Sciences and Communications and 6 percent of the credit courses within the physical science division.
With the majority of CCE’s scheduled programs to be transferred to LAS, the college’s remaining programs may be affected.
Cornelius Pings, senior vice president of Academic Affairs, said the program’s projected impact remains unclear.
“I can’t see that this is going to help CCE. but it is difficult to assess the full consequences at this time,” the vice president said.
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