Basketball team blows chance \ Prince, Richie top American for Pac-10 lead — see page 24 j Music Awards — see page 10
trojan
Volume XCVIII, Number 13
University of Southern California
Tuesday, January 29, 1985
FEES FOR FALL '85 RISE
Students can expect 9% tuition increase for fall 1985 semester
By James Jones
Assistant City Editor
Students may face a 9 percent increase in tuition in the fall of 1985, for the first one-digit increase in at least five years, said John Curry, executive director of the university budget.
“This is the first time that the increase has been under double-digits in some time," Curry said.
The increase would raise the yearly tuition rate from $8,625 to $9,401.
Curry said the increase is still tentative and open to change, but added a final figure will be reached by mid-April.
Kenneth Servis, chairman of the budget advisory committee, said that "within the next two weeks the increase figures will begin to firm up."
The committee will review the processes by which the increase percentage was calculated and may make recommendations for changes, Servis said.
"I am pleased it was not a double-digit increase. If it had been, I think that would have been bad," Servis said.
Mike Singer, Student Senate president, said the percentage increase was "definitely higher than we expected."
Singer said he expected an increase between 6 and 9 percent, with 6 to 7 percent as his ideal figure.
Increased salaries, additional faculty members and inflation are the reasons Curry cited for the new tuition rate.
"The university's primary goal is an increased quality in the undergraduate education," he said. "We are sensitive to remaining competitive in terms of salaries in order to attract new professors.
"Over 60 percent of the university's expenditure budget goes toward salaries. Our second goal is to add faculty and improve the facilities here on campus."
Curry said that with the tuition increase of 1984, more than $5 million helped fund and authorize about 40 new positions university-wide. The funds covered salaries, start-up fees, new facilities and equipment for the new personnel.
Approximately 50 percent of the university's $442 million income comes from tuition and fees, with the other half derived from endowments, gifts, contracts and grants, investment income, and sales and services.
These revenues are matched against the univer-
(Continued on page 6)
Conference will study unity, diversity of blacks and whites in Greek system
By Catherine Baldwin
Staff Writer
A conference designed to study relations between black and white members of college fraternities and sororities will be held on campus Feb. 1 and 2.
"Ebony and Ivory II" will explore the cross-cultural opportunities and challenges that students face on a campus with active organizations representing traditionally white or black Greek societies.
"Celebrate Diversity" and "Celebrating Unity" are the themes for the conference.
Gloria Haithman, director of the commuter affairs office and chairwoman of the conference, said one goal of the meeting is to teach people they can be unit-
ed and still appreciate diversity. Haithman said she hopes the conference will have the effect of "removing one more brick from the wall separating people."
Robert Leach, president-elect of the National Association for Student Personnel Administrators, will give the keynote speech Saturday and will participate in informal sessions throughout the day.
He is interested in "building bridges" to better understanding between races, and creating a "sense of community" within the university, Haithman said.
Black and white Greek students, advisors, administrators, and national and regional fraternity / sorority officials will also
give presentations.
Leach will also lead a discussion for student affairs professionals on Friday.
This workshop will provide a forum for discussing practical ways of dealing with intergroup and intercultural challenges on campus.
Representatives from Stanford University, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cal State Fullerton, UC Irvine and UCLA will be among the schools represented at the conference.
College populations are becoming more diverse in their racial composition, and the conference is supposed to give members of black and white Greek societies a chance to ex-(Continued on page 7)
JULIE SEIDELDAILY TROJAN
Even with plenty of water from the sky, university fountains continued to flow Monday.
Student opinion clashes with senate survey
Freshman Writing Program examined for inadequacies
By Pablo Lopez
Staff Writer
The general education survey conducted by the Student Senate, which pointed out the inadequacies of the Freshman Writing Program, was in stark contrast to the evaluations given by students who took the course last fall.
In Senate Resolution 850123-01, the senate requested that the university's General Education Committee accept the recommendation of the survey, giving particular consideration to the problems of the Freshman Writing Program's first semester grading system and its overall philosophy and structure.
However, the most recent student evaluation — from those who took the class in fall 1984 — indicated that a majority of students rated the program a success.
But a separate survey conducted last fall for the university by three colleges outside of California reported that the Freshman Writing Program was satisfactory.
During last fall semester, the College of Letters, Arts
and Sciences commissioned three outside sources from the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Texas at Austin, and Washington University in St. Louis to examine the general education program as a whole.
In its report, the universities reported to USC that the
Freshman Writing Program was "a well conceived pro-
____ if gram.
Monday, the Daily Trojan reported that over three-fourths of the students questioned by the senate mentioned the Freshman Writing Program as being by far the easiest and worst general education course at the university.
"Terrible" and "a joke" were the most frequent responses, according to the senate survey.
However, on a scale of 1 to 5, with one being very poor and five very good, students in the program polled at the end of fall 1984 rated the overall quality above 3.75.
In one response, students believed they learned "something of value" from the course by rating it a 3.76.
Other categories, including learning in the course, abi-
lity of the instructors, difficulty of the assignments, evaluation of the instructor and the value of the group tutorial systems were rated above 3.45.
The writing center was the only category given less than 3.40. The tutors in the center were given a 3.38 and use of the center itself was given a 3.2.
A total of 2,464 students were polled for the evaluation compared to the 478 students interviewed in front of Tommy Trojan by the Student Senate last November.
But even before the senate report was finalized, Marshall Cohen, dean of the humanities division of LAS, formed the Freshman Writing Policy Committee to evaluate the grading system in first semester freshman writing.
However, the report commissioned by the university did not include any mention of the grading procedure in the writing program.
Last December, the FWP Policy Committee recommended to the Committee on Academic Policy and Procedures that a revision be made in the first semester
(Continued on page 2)