(aMfe trojan
4}
Volume XCI Number
University of Southern California Wednesday, December 2, 1981
Integrity brochure OK’d
Awareness of cheating policy sought
By Barry Sloan
Staff Writer
The Faculty and Student Senates took another step toward upgrading and reaffirming the academic integrity of students and faculty by voting overwhelmingly last week to publish a brochure outlining the university’s policy on cheating, plagiarizing and similar acts.
Pending approval from a legal staff and Cornelius Pings, vice president of Academic Affairs, Jthe brochure will serve to re-educate students and faculty about the policies and procedures that should be followed in order to maintain academic integrity, and to establish a tone by the university’s administration regarding the matter.
The majority of the brochure material has been printed already in SCampus and the Faculty Handbook, but members of the senates and the Academic Standards Commission agreed that the material needed more widespread • exposure. Thus, the commission conducted a study in the summer of 1980 to evaluate the extent of dishonest academic practices on campus.
Because a survey question regarding cheating was not specific enough, the study did not produce definitive results
regarding the breadth of student cheating here, but it did indicate that the problem is pervasive, said Robert Mannes, dean of Student Affairs.
Thus, the Faculty and Student Senates and the standards commission worked jointly to formulate a more detailed policy outline and make the academic community aware of its existence.
The brochures will be published soon, the dean said, adding that it may be distributed in the registration packets next semester.
Peyton Fisher, chairman of the Academic Affairs Unit of the Student Senate, said the new brochure was designed "to increase student knowledge of where they can go if they encounter a cheating problem and what action they can take if caught.” <
“It will make students more aware that the university does have procedures that will indict them if caught cheating,” Fisher added. She said the brochure was distributed to about 1,000 freshmen this fall.
Mannes emphasized that "the committee wants to take a positive viewpoint — to state university policy strongly enough and hope that the academic community lives up to it.
“We hope more of the identified cases of cheating will be reported, so the seriousness of the cheating will become more evident, as will the consequences.”
Janet Chaudhuri, staff associate to Pings, praised the idea for the booklet, noting that the problem was the responsibility of students and faculty members. Academic Affairs has always been on the lookout for cheating, but it is not a runaway problem here, she said.
State budget cut not to affect Cal Grants
By Mitchell Rossi
Staff Writer
Although more than 20 percent of undergraduate students at the university use Cal Grants, few were aware of the possible cutbacks of the grant next semester, said Michael Halloran, acting executive director of Student Academic Services.
Because Gov. Jerry Brown required a two-percent cutback in this year’s budget, there was some concern that the amount of the grants would be decreased, Halloran said.
The California Student Aid Commission was able to absorb the cut in this year’s budget without having to decrease the grants, the director said. The commission, an agency of the state government, is responsible for administering all Cal Grant programs and monitoring all the California Guaranteed Student Loan programs. It has yet to finalize its plans for next year's budget which is still being negotiated.
The threat of the budget cut did not affect the enrollment, the executive director said. “It only affects the Cal Grant program. It is not going to affect the (individual) grants themselves. Generally, a student who is coming into the spring semester with a Cal Grant is either transferring his grant from another institution or is in one of the referral situations where they (the student) had it for the fall but didn’t start school till the spring.
"They already know where they stand,” he said.
.The demand for grant applications has risen tremendously, Hal-
(Continued on page 10)
PREPARATION FOR OLYMPICS
Coliseum to undergo renovation
By Yolanda Austin
In preparation for the 1984 Olympic Games, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will undergo extensive renovation early next year, but university students will not face increased ticket fees or inconveniences due to construction, a Coliseum official said.
“No USC football season will be affected,’’ said Jim Hardy, general manager of the Coliseum, concerning the renovations. The 25 to 50 front-row seats removed to make room for the track will not be missed
Communication seminar merges corporate technological interests
By Alan Grossman
Staff Writer
After donating a satellite receiving dish to the Annenberg School of Communications early this week, a communications firm helped the Annenberg school sponsor a cable technology seminar which featured Ted Turner, the owner of Cable News Network.
The receiving dish, donated by the Communications Technology Management Corp., which markets entertainment and information equipment. will be used for teaching students about the cable and satellite industry.
The USC News Service said that the company gave the dish to the university in honor of Lionel Van Deerlin, former U.S. congressman from California and former chairman of the House Communications subcommittee.
The purpose of the cable technology conference, entitled “Telecommunications for the '80s: Converging Corporate Strategies,” was to bring together all of the different types of companies which help make up the industry, said Gina Schewe, vice president of the communications management corporation.
Both the members of the Annenberg school and the corporation said they believe that one goal of this conference was to bring together the four so-called pioneers of cable television, including the flamboyant Turner, the Atlanta businessman who also owns baseball's Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association.
Participating in a cross-country teleconference which links the Annenberg school and communication experts in Washington, D.C., subtitled “Risk and Rewards: Survival of the Fittest,” Turner estimated that his Cable News Network reaches 10.5 million viewers throughout America. He announced that in 30 days CNN II, a spinoff of the 24-hour news network, will also begin broadcasting news around the clock but with a different format.
"CNN II will deal with hard, hard news similar to the CBS Evening News, and will run in
30-minute cycles, unlike the free-form style of CNN. It will take feeds from local stations and will broadcast twice as much news as CBS (the cable news branch of CBS which currently airs 12 hours of news per day).”
A major concern of the broadcasters at the conference, which also included Jack Healey of ABC Video, Arthur Taylor of the Entertainment Channel and Ray Joslin of the Hearst Corp., was the financial viability of cable networks in the future and how advertising would have to be included over the air in order to survive.
“We charge a very modest fee for our services, and without it we couldn’t provide as good a service to the American people,” Turner said. “ESPN (the 24-hour sports network) made the mistake of giving their service away and lost $30 million this year. That’s even too much for Getty Oil, so they figured they’d let ABC share in the losses.”
Turner was then asked by one of the Washington panelists, Stan Crook of The Wall Street Journal, why he opposed ABC entering the video market — especially since Turner is such a champion of the free enterprise system.
The entrepreneur said ABC predicted that they would “finish him off, as they had 10 times more money,” and Turner took, offense to the statement. He then added that he felt the commercial network did not belong in the market because it started the evening news before their cable news, which, to Turner, was questionable since “all journalists owe it to the public to get the news out as soon as possible.”
Turner predicted that in the future, advertising support would sustain a cable network and that no more than seven or eight networks (including ABC, NBC and CBS) could survive because the viewing public would not accept any more. As prospective cable businessmen in the audience sat silent. Turner warned that those who think otherwise will suffer the same fate as “fried chicken entrepreneurs who tried to copy the success of the Colonel.”
(Continued on page 7)
because no one uses them, he said.
“There will be no negative impact, but some pluses for the university,” Hardy said. He emphasized that ticket fees will not be increased nor will there be any inconvenience due to construction scheduled to end in 1983, but players and spectators will benefit from the improvements.
The $10-million project will include repairs and improvements to raise the Coliseum to Olympic standards. Construction will begin with the installation of air-conditioning in dressing rooms and the remodeling of the sewage system.
The Atlantic Richfield Co., a co-sponsor with the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, will fund construction of a regulation-size track.
Tentative plans have been made for the installation of an elaborate Olympic scoreboard
and stopwatch to be funded by the Coliseum or possibly a foreign nation in exchange for television rights to the sports event.
Extensive electrical work, including the repair of the public address system, and construction such as renovating concession stands are still under discussion by the Olympic committee and the Coliseum management.
Amy Collis of the Olympic committee said both groups are still deciding what work is to be done and which companies will be awarded the contracts.
Hardy said escalators to the second and third floors will be installed and the bad plumbing in the restrooms will be repaired.
University officials said they were unable to comment on how the school would indirectly benefit from the project.
Staff photo by Joe Fives
CABLE TALK — Ted Turner, owner of Cable News Network, said he believes the future of cable television is bright, but warns of oversaturation. He spoke Tuesday at a telecommunications seminar held at the Annenberg School of Communications.