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Volume XCIII, Number 28	University of Southern California	Friday, February 18, 1983
Evaluation of TAs called for by Senate
Students can expect shorter lines and quicker responses from the registration and records department A new computer system will be unveiled in three weeks.
New computerized system will speed transcript process
By Sheldon Ito
Staff Writer
The university’s registration and records department will begin operating a new computerized transcript processing system within the next few wreeks that will solve many of the problems associated with the previous manual system.
“We’re converting from an outmoded paper system to a state-of-the-art computerized system,” said Howard Saper-ston. director of registration and records.
Under the old system, students had to wait up to 48 hours for unofficial transcripts and up to 10 working days for official transcripts, a wait that many felt was too long.
“We’ve received a lot of complaints (about the long wait for transcripts) by students, and we’ve been pushing the administration for an improved (transcript processing) system,” said Sharon Dolezal, chairwoman of the academic affairs research action unit for the student senate. “It’s been one of our priorities over the past couple of years.”
The senate had asked the registration and records department to be able to give out unofficial transcripts “on the spot,” and official transcripts within 24 hours, Dolezal said.
Once the new computer system is fully operational, which Saperston said will be in three months, that will be possible and, depending on the number of requests, official transcripts may be processed while one waits, he said.
Saperston added that in the future, unofficial transcripts may be unnecessary because transcript information will be available on the terminals of
the different university schools and departments.
The new system was designed by Robert Morley. associate director of registration and records, in conjunction with the university computer center in November 1981, after the student senate allocated
540,000	to assist in the transcript conversion project. The actual conversion process started in May 1982, when approximately 50,000 students’ records began to be entered into the system.
Although the process was completed by the end of last summer, the system could not be made operational until the accuracy of the information was audited. Morley said.
“The basic conversion project is approximately 75 percent complete. We’re at the stage right now where we're testing the print program, to make sure we have all the bugs out,” Saperston said.
However, he cautioned that the system will not be fully operational until the audits are complete and other “bugs” are worked out, which won’t be for another three months.
“Prior to fall 1982, grades were produced by the computerized enrollment system and grade labels were affixed to the hard copy transcripts,” Saperston said, explaining the problems with the old system. “You can imagine how much time and effort that took.”
Saperston said some of the problems included the unavailability of files after lending them to other departments, and that any lost files had to be painstakingly “reconstructed.”
“There was no way we could meet the student needs with the old system.” Morley said.
Under the new system, the grades are automatically transferred from the enrollment system into the transcript system.
and the transcript itself consists of a special computer printout.
"That eliminates most of the paperwork. Everything is done by computers,” Saperston said.
The computer system will not necessarily raise the price of obtaining a transcript, which is currently $2 for an unofficial transcript and $4 for an official one.
“As of this point, the costs will remain the same," Saperston said.
By Mark Lowe
Staff Writer
Responding to complaints about the language abilities of teaching assistants, the student senate on Monday asked that all departments require their international teaching assistants to pass an English proficiency test.
The resolution requested that the oral and written tests given by the university’s American Language Institute be used as the standard for determining whether an international teaching assistant has an adequate knowledge of English.
“All it will do is strengthen the departments,” said Sharon Dolezal, chairwoman of the academic affairs research action unit of the senate. “It’s a consistent means of judging the language ability of TA s.”
The resolution, however, cannot affect any department unless it is approved by university President James Zumberge and Senior Vice President Cornelius Pings, both of whom have been sent copies of the resolution.
A copy of the request has also been sent to the committee on the Rights, Welfare and Responsibilities of Graduate Assistants, which is meeting today to discuss how to evaluate and improve the language proficiency of teaching assistants.
The senate drafted the resolution after receiving numerous complaints from students about their teaching assistants’ inadequate command of English, and after learning that the university does not have a standard for determining language proficiency that is binding on all departments.
Most colleges use the “Test of English as a Foreign Language" to judge their international students’ abilities in the English language, but the university does not because of problems with evaluating the scores on tests taken outside the United States, Dolezal said.
“In the United States, we know how' the tests are run and standardized,” Dolezal said. “We can't control all that in another country to assure that all those steps are being followed correctly.”
Dolezal added that each country has a different standard, making comparisons almost impossible.
The university instead relies upon a test given by its own language institute, but Dolezal said all departments are not required to abide by the test results in assigning teaching assistant jobs.
“We found that some departments can waive the results of their (ALI) evaluations,” she said. “The money that goes into screening students is just wasted if the department decides to just waive it.”
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Reporter: Seymour Hersh Mission: To expose corruption
By Steve De Salvo
Assistant City Editor
“Lt. William L. Calley Jr., twenty-six, is a mild-mannered. boyish-looking Vietnam combat veteran with the nickname of ‘Rusty. ’ The army says he deliberately murdered at least 109 Vietnamese civilians ...”
—	1969 Dispatch News Service wire storv.
Seymour Hersh was an unknown 32-year-old reporter working for the equally obscure Dispatch News Service when he single-handedly un-1 covered the most shocking story of the Vietnam War — the My Lai massacre.
And he did it without ever having set foot in Vietnam.
Hersh would later go on to win the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for his expose, but the full impact of the story transcended journalism awards. To many Americans, the My Lai Massacre and the ensuing cover-up by the
military, came to represent a mad war gone berserk.
Some panelists at the conference suggested that Hersh’s reporting hastened the end of the Vietnam War. Yet Hersh. for his part, insists the story had little impact.
“Maybe it ended the war by 20 minutes," he said in an interview last week w-hile on campus for the “Vietnam Reconsidered” conference. “Maybe one guy didn't get half his leg blown off.”
“Maybe,” he added.
The My Lai Massacre came to Hersh’s attention when a young man informed him that a young army lieutenant wfas being secretly court-martialed for killing Vietnamese civilians. After painstakingly searching for Calley, Hersh finally located him in Florida and obtained an interview.
Once he had the story, Hersh tried to sell it to Life and Look magazines. Neither magazine wras interested, so he took the story to a friend. David Obst. who, at 22, operated the tiny Dispatch News Service.
When the first of five Hersh’s articles appeared over the wire on November 13, 1969, 36 subscriber-newspa-pers picked up the story. The story of Charlie Company and the massacre, which investigators would later find claimed the lives of somewhere between 347 and 565 civilians, became front-page news across America — more than a year and a half after the massacre occurred.
Hersh would later write "My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and its Aftermath,” a detailed and horrifying account of the massacre, and “Cover-up: The Army's Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4.”
In Hersh’s view, the My Lai Massacre was “only the tip of an iceberg.
“It wras just a day in the life of Vietnam."
Today. 13 years after My Lai. Hersh is still a potent force in journalism. At 45. he even has the look of an investigative
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