Degree check may be a student nightmare
By Wendell Mobley
Staff Writer
The student’s nightmare: Going through commencement ceremonies only to find out nine months later that the university did not graduate him.
It is a situation that can and does happen, according to Debra Smith, supervisor'of the undergraduate section of the Graduation Department.
“In some cases a prospective employer might call and ask if a potential employee has graduated, and he is told that the student has not. In actuality, the student may have — we just haven’t processed him yet,” Smith said.
The supervisor gave several suggestions to students that may serve as safeguards against such an unwanted surprise.
One of the most important things students can do is to become familiar w'ith the university catalogue. “A student needs to leam university rules and regulations and should become familiar with their curriculum,” she said.
Students should check transcripts every' semester. Smith said. “Make sure it is up to date and make sure they take care of removing incompletes.” While checking transcripts, students should also check for missing grades. “Sometimes students don’t do that and the professor has left the university. This makes it very hard to confirm the grade,” she explained.
Smith said necessary petitions should be filed as soon as possible. There are several reasons a petition would be filed:
—	If a student wants to make an exception to the curriculum.
—	If a student breaks residency with the university and chooses to take a course from another university.
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trojan
Volume XCI Number 3!
University of Southern California
NEW DEANSHIP CREATED
Monday, October 26, 1981
Student service office revamped
By Jim Radcliffe
Staff Writer
As part of a revamping of Student Administrative Services, the university has created a new deanship which will oversee a variety of student concerns, including admissions, financial aid, international admissions and marketing.
University officials said they hope to fill the new' post, dean of Administrations and Financial Aid, by the end of the year.
After Jim Jones resigned as executive director of SAS ear-
Staff photo by Andrew Innerarity
FIRST DAUGHTER — Maureen Reagan, President Reagan's daughter and a possible candidate for the U.S. Senate, shares her views with a political science class.
Maureen Reagan talks politics
Covers AWACS to economics
By Deborah George
If Maureen Reagan decides to run for the U.S. Senate, she plans to run on her own name and not her father’s. How, one might ask? “By using ‘Maureen in '82' and not ‘Reagan for Senate’ (as a campaign slogan),” Reagan told a political science class last Thursday.
Reagan, a potential Republican candidate in the '82 Senate race, spoke to a class entitled “Campaign, Elections and Parties,” taught by Joseph Cerrell of Cerrell Associates, a political consulting firm.
Although Reagan has not announced her candidacy, she is the only Republican woman eyeing the U.S. Senate and the only potential Republican candidate who strongly supports the Equal Rights Amendment.
After making a few brief remarks, the president’s first daughter energetically fielded questions from the class for 90 minutes. The topics ranged from her views on Christian right groups to her feelings on punk.
Reagan’s husband, Dennis Revell, a consultant in Woodland Hills, also answered a few brief questions for the audience.
The single most important issue right now, Reagan said, is to balance the federal budget. Reagan advocated the supply-side economics that her father also advocates to help create new
jobs and achieve this balance. She also was disturbed with the thought of the country having such a large trade deficit.
She said Americans should concentrate on letting the country’s businesses flourish, adding that if the United States could produce more goods at home, it would create more jobs and simultaneously make other countries market places for American products. Reagan emphasized this by stating that tax incentives for small businesses and free enterprise create 90 percent of all new jobs.
Turning to the subject of defense, Reagan said that although she believes in a voluntary military, she advocates compulsory draft registration which w’ould include women. Draft registration started under former President Jimmy Carter, Reagan said, is “(America’s) signal to the world that we are prepared to defend ourselves.”
She added that passage of the ERA could make women eligible for the draft, but that they could still be drafted regardless of its passage.
She encouraged a visitor-w'orker program with tight border policies to curb the growing influx of undocumented workers. She said there are many jobs Americans don’t want to do that the undocumented worker would gladly do in order to support himself and his family back home.
“They really don’t want to stay here (United States),” said Reagan. She also feels that the Un-
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lier this month, the administration decided to reorganize SAS in an effort “to emphasize the administration and financial functions (of the office)," said Jon Strauss, senior vice president of Administrations.
The dean’s job will be “to improve the quality of our students continually, while maintaining the tuition income necessary,” the vice president said. The dean will administer many of the departments previously managed by the executive director, excluding two areas that formally were under Strauss' direction.
The selection of the dean will be made by Strauss and Cornelius Pings, senior vice president of Academic Affairs. An advisory committee “will be used to screen applications and ultimately candidates.” Strauss said.
The group consists of James Appleton, vice president of Student affairs, Chet Lieb provost, and Bill Weber, chairman of the AdmissionsCommittee. It also includes Gloria Porter, director of the university's Counseling Services, and Patty Minor, vice chairman of the Student Senate.
“We've sort of covered the spectrum of administration, deans, faculty, students and staff,” Strauss said, adding that although the administration
does not expect formal recommendations from other contingencies, he said he believes it will receive some input.
Until the dean's position is filled. Michael Halloran. director of Financial Aid and Automated Systems, will act as interim director of Student Administrative Services. Strauss said.
There is no deadline for the selection “since it is obviously dependent on the people we are able to encourage to apply,” Strauss said, “but I would very much like to have and identify a person by the first of the year.” The university is advertising the position nationally.
While searching for a dean, the university w'ill consider adding to the staff and to funds of the admissions and financial branches, Strauss said. “That’s an issue we'll want to discuss as we work w'ith the new' dean.”
“One of the areas of emphasis that we're stressing in our search for the person and in our communications to our other deans about this position is that we wish to emphasize more of the whole area of alumni relations and alumni involvement in this process,” Strauss said. “And we want to specifically emphasize the recruitment of alumni children.”
Campus feels jolts of 2 earthquakes
By Mitchell Rossi
Staff Writer
As the university continues to grow as an educational institution, the ground below' keeps trying to change its location. Two earthquakes reminded the community Friday of California's shifting foundation.
The first quake, which struck at 10:28 a.m., measured 4.5 on the Richter scale, the Caltech Seismology Laboratory in Pasadena reported. The second quake, at 12:15 p.m., registered 4.7. Both quakes were centered in the Pacific Ocean. 40 miles southwest of Santa Monica.
Although no damage or injuries were reported at the university, the strong steel and thick concrete of buildings, especially 10 stories above the ground, seemed to lose their sturdiness.
“You could really feel the building swav,” said Tyson Reyes, a graduate student in public administration w'ho works in Waite Phillips Hall of Education. “Buildings seem to creak and you could hear this building creak. It makes you (realize) how powerless you are over this. When you're on the 10th floor you just have to sit it out.”
During an earthquake, most people worry about the buildings that are already built. Howrever, buildings that are under construction can cause a different type of concern.
“It’s a scary feeling because of all the loose things above you. and the ground (under the building) is rtill not very stable,” said Kirk Bensen, a construction w'orker at the Seeley G. Mudd building site.
Gerald Jones, a faculty member at Doheny Library, said the ground movement could be felt on the storage floor below the bottom floors of the library. “The whole building just moved back and forth and rumbled. It’s pretty frightening. I just thought about getting out. You try to find the fastest way to get up the stairs. There’s no w'indows (on the bottom floor), there’s nothing.”
But some people are not bothered by tremors. “They're all right,” said Dan Ptak, a graduate student in public administration from St. Paul, Minnesota, who was also on the 10th floor of Waite Phillips Hall Friday morning. “I'd rather have earthquakes than snowstorms,” he said.