Staff Assembly describes possible cuts as ‘justified’
By Laura Castaneda
Staff Writer
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Volume XCI Number 36
University of Southern California
Friday March 5, 1982
Staff photo by Jon Soo Hoo
THE WAY WE WERE — A lone student walks across empty Cromwell Field before construction began on the MacDonald's Swim Stadium. The stadium, which will be the site of swimming events at 1984 Olympic Games, should be completed by early 1984.
The proposed reductions in staff announced by Cornelius Pings, senior vice president of Academic Affairs, on Wednesday were said to be “quite possibly justified” by Margaret Harrington, vice president of the Staff Assembly.
As vice president of the assembly, narrington represents the views of the staff. She said the assembly is aware that finances are tight and that an effort to reduce expenditures would have to be made.
“It is clear that these financial problems require difficult choices for the university,” Harrington said.
Some of these choices include reductions in staff. “We must look carefully at management systems to try to reduce the total structure, and at the same time we must continue to provide good .services,” Harrington said.
Although staff may be reduced, there is no indication that faculty will be cut. The assembly realizes that faculty must remain at the top of the priority list, said Harrington, who is also the dean of public administration.
“Faculty and students are the primary business of the university, and we must protect it,” she said.
Reduction proposals were no surprise, but the scope of the cuts was not expected by many people, the dean said. However, “The administration and assembly must work together to maintain and enhance services in such a way as to keep costs at a level beneficial to the university,” she said.
The only objections by the assembly regarding the reductions involved the abruptness of the cuts, and the absence of any consultation with the assembly, in regard to the reductions.
“Circumstances are such that substantial action had to be taken quickly,” Harrington said.
Harrington explained that there are two ways to reduce expendi-
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Special task force set to oppose Reagan's financial aid cutbacks
By Eric Onstad
Staff Writer
In response to Reagan administration plans to slash student aid programs, President James H. Zumberge appointed a special task force Wednesday to coordinate the university’s efforts to protest the cuts.
The move is one of several efforts by universities and colleges nationwide to oppose President Reagan’s proposed reductions in grants, loans and other aid programs.
Zumberge sent out a memo Wednesday inviting eight persons to join the Special Task
Force on Federal Student Aid, and asked for a report in just two weeks.
“They (the task force members) are not going to plow around and chew too long,” said George Abdo, Zumberge’s executive assistant. “This is a high priority item.”
james Appleton, vice president of Student Affairs, will be chairman of the committee which will study how the cuts will affect this university, and will create a university policy on the issue.
Appleton called the committee a “well-informed group,” because each member has a wealth of information concerning how the aid cutbacks will affect this university.
The group will study which political actions the university may take to prevent the cuts, and which internal solutions will make the university more self-sufficient.
If the cutbacks are as big as Reagan has proposed, the university will have to come up with as much as $2 million to replace lost student aid funds, said Cornelius Pings, senior vice president of Academic Affairs, earlier this week.
Pings told the Student Senate Wednesday night that the situation is so desperate that the Board of Trustees will have to ask Zumberge to use quasiendowment funds to meet university needs.
Quasi-endowment funds can be used for current operating expenses only in emergency
circumstances.
Pings said the university funds might be used to guarantee loans from banks and subsidize a “point or two” of the interest rate.
“If all the students register in the (congressional) district of the university, some congressmen will have 20,000 more voters in November,” Pings said. “It will only take a couple of them (congressmen) losing (in November) to get the message across.”
The National Institute of Independent Colleges and Universities, the research unit of the organization that represents the university in Washington, D.C., released a report last week that painted a dire picture for students at independent colleges if the budget cuts take place.
“It is estimated,” said the report, "that more than 500,000 students (28 percent of the total undergraduate enrollment) may find the cost of an independent college beyond their means by 1983-84.”
The report also predicted an average unmet need of $1,129 per student by 1983-84.
The task force includes Michael Halloran, interim director of Financial Aid and Admissions, Veronica Tincher, director of management information and studies in the Office of the University Budget, and Vance Peterson, executive
director of University Relations.
Universities facing drastic financial aid reductions
College a right; not privilege, says former activist
By Mark Grabow
Staff Writer
“When many of us struggled during the ’60s, we ( felt that college education was a right and not a privilege,” a former university activist said Thursday.
That former activist is Allan Nisho, who is now vice president of student affairs at California State University at Long Beach. As a student, Nisho, along with 40 of other students, stormed the office of Norman H. Topping, who was then president of the university, and demanded money for minority scholarships.
The group's effort eventually resulted in $40,000 for minority scholarships.
“I learned an early lesson in how corporate America works,” Nisho said. “I learned a lesson about power at USC — who has it and who doesn't.”
Nisho applied this lesson to Reaganomics and student financial aid in a speech sponsored by the Minority Student Caucus. Two other guest speakers at the forum were Cecilia Vielma, associate director of financial aid at the university, and John Ichinga. director of student affairs at the university’s school of social work.
“I think it’s good that all of you are here.” Nisho told the approximately 10 students who attended the forum in the Student Activities Center. “You are the ones who really care. I hope a much larger movement comes from this.”
The vice president then outlined the effects that Reaganomics will have on university students, j Holding up a chart with two black lines printed on
it, he said, “The line going up is the cost of going to college each year. The line going down is the available financial aid.”
There was a large gap between the two lines. “Things are going up in cost while the money to support them is going down,” Nisho emphasized. “1982 is peanuts compared to what’s going to happen in 1983.
“Your brothers and sisters will not be able to go here in 1983,” he said.*
The vice president went on to attack Reaganomics. “Reagan has sold the public a bill of goods.
‘For those of us in the student movement, Reaganomics represents a policy of guns over butter, a policy that emphasizes self over others'
supply-side economics and New Federalism. He is only buying time in order to divert our anger. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.”
Nisho said Reaganomics is a devastating attack on the rights minorities have fought so hard to gain. “For those of us in the student movement, Reaganomics represents a policy of guns over butter, a policy that emphasizes self over others. It’s a policy of greed over generosity.
“Anyrone who has taken a basic economics course knows it (Reaganomics) is not going to work,” Nisho added.
“Reaganomics’ basic thing is give money to rich people and let them take care of the poor. Two hundred years ago this was called slavery. Supply-
side economics does not addjess the needs of people. It is a crock that addresses the needs of the rich.”
Speaking out against New Federalism, the vice president said Reagan is giving the programs back to the states, but he is only giving back one-third of the dollars needed to establish them.
Vielma, the first speaker on Thursday’s agenda, gave a statistical account of how financial aid cutbacks will affect university students.
Under the Cal Grant program, students will go though a validation process in which they will not only have to prove to the federal government that they are eligible for the monies, but also to the university that they are attending, Vielma said.
She said there is a proposal to increase the amount of students who are being selected for the validation process. “What this means to a student is that he will have to provide the financial aid office with more data regarding family income before receiving a Cal Grant or BEOG (Basic Equal Opportunity Grant) check,” she said.
“In the past, we validated 10 percent of all BEOG recipients. Now, there is a possibility that the federal government will require us to validate more in order to save money on Cal Grant."
The law' currently sets the limit at $1,800 maximum, but the associate director said it may be decreased. “This will mean a lot more red tape for students,” she said.
As far as the National Direct Student Loans were concerned, Vielma said, “We are hoping the maximum award will not go below $900.”
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