trojan
Volume XCVII, Number 28
University of Southern California
Thursday, October 11, 1984
Police added to South-Central area
Nine officers to aid patrol
By Karen Kucher
Assistant Qty Editor
The Los Angeles Police Commission, bending to demands by community groups to change its manpower deployment formula, approved the transfer of nine officers to South-Central Los Angeles from the San Fernando Valley and Westside areas Tuesday night.
"The Commission eliminated property value as one of the many factors in the deployment formula because of the emotion surrounding the issue/' said Bill Cowdin, Los Angeles Police Commission board secretary.
"The way the formula was before, more weight was given to a $1,000 stereo stolen from West Los Angeles, than to a $200 stereo taken from the ghetto, even though the stereo means as much to the person in the ghetto/' Cowdin said.
It is possible there will be
Student Senate squabbles over remission increases
By Karen Kucher
Assistant City Editor
The Student Senate, in a secret ballot, voted 14-6 with 3 abstentions against doubling the tuition remission of its graduate representative, after almost an hour of discussion Wednesday night.
Arguing that his job responsibility was greatly increased by senate action a few weeks ago when the graduate representative was made the chairman of the graduate programming board, Darryl Stewart asked the senate to boost his tuition remission from 1/8 ($135 per month) to 1/4 ($270 per month).
Stewart, who said he expected the amendment to pass, said after the meeting, "I wanted to show them the scope of the
(graduated programming board) program. Instead it became an issue of personality.
"I ran for graduate representative not having the responsibility of chairing the programming board. A person has to be there almost fulltime."
The senate allotted a 1/8 tuition remission last year for both the graduate and undergraduate representatives, because the undergraduate representative was doing recruiting, said Nancy Calle, chairwoman of the student affairs research action unit.
"That 1/8 was justified in that case. The graduate representative virtually had nothing to do (last year)," she said during the meeting.
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more changes since many people feel the formula is inequitable, he said.
Cowdin also said an outside group might conduct the study of the deployment plan because of the emotional impact of the issue.
Cowdin called the transferring of nine officers "miniscule."
The United Neighborhoods Organization sees the change as a victory, although Louis Negrete, a UNO spokesman, said the organization will continue attending the commission meeting until the "deployment issue is decided fairly."
"When the commission decided to transfer nine officers they made a major concession that the formula is unfair," Negrete said.
Cowdin said, "I look at this as one step in a number of steps neccesary in order to find a fair percentage allotment."
The South-Central Organizing Committee is not satisfied with the transfering of officers, although Frances James, a spokeswoman for the SCOC, said it is a step in the right direction.
"This is just a down payment on what is due to us. We just want our fair share, since we have 30 percent of crime and 20 percent of the police allocation," she said.
The university will not be affected by the transferring of officers, said Dexter Thomas, a university security officer.
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Vice President Bush to speak Monday in front of Doheny
By Sheldon Ito
Qty Editor
Vice President George Bush will speak on campus Monday at noon in front of Doheny Library. Bush will be the second major candidate for national office to speak at the university within the past month.
James Dennis, vice president for student affairs, said the Reagan / Bush campaign requested permission for Bush to speak here Wednesday morning and their request was approved the same day.
Paul Fichtner, vice presidential advance with the Reagan / Bush campaign, said USC was chosen over UCLA and Pepperdine University "mainly because the (university's) population itself has
Dennis, however, is hoping students will not repeat the "embarrassing" behavior many displayed when they disrupted Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale's speech here last month . . .
been supportive of George Bush and the Reagan administration in the past."
Fichtner said Bush's speech here will be part of a campaign swing through the West Coast.
Both Bush and President Reagan have had standing invitations to speak at the university extended to them by the Trojan College Republicans, said Mark Decker, the group's vice president. The Trojan College Republicans is sponsoring the speech along with the university programming board's sp^pkers committee.
"I'm so excited that Bush is coming that I can't tell you," Decker said. "USC is really honored. Within a one month period we've been honored with two candidates for national office. What other university in the country has been so honored?"
Dennis, however, is hoping students will not repeat the "embarrassing" behavior many displayed when they disrupted Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale's speech here last
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Freshman Writing: Changes meet with conflict
By Ramona Hattendorf
Assistant Managing Editor
This is the first of a two-part series on the Freshman Writing Program.
"There may be some validity in accusations on lack of unity. I'm not sure."
—	Judith Mathews, freshman writing instructor.
Over the years, the Freshman Writing Program has been attacked by many as inadequate to the students' needs and abilities. Among the primary grievances are lack of continuity among the instructors and the emphasis placed on grammar and style. Many students, exasperated with the program's radical workshop approach, claim the program falls far short of their needs.
Yet the program's director, Betty Bamberg, insists there is a lot of support for the program at the university level. The program is adaptable and geared toward change with three post-doctoral fellows helping with improvement research. Moreover, the instructors are well-known for their dedication and availability to students.
Yet complaints and student frustration continue.
Highlighting the issue last semester was an editorial in the April 9 edition of the Daily Trojan:
“Gone are the days of bone-head freshman English 101 with some smelly old professor and dull grammar lectures. The university’s new idea is to make
learning fun and easy. By giving students the tools to improve their writing and letting them proceed at their own rate, the program tries to create a low-pressure environment. Much of the program is based on research, so of course, then it must be better than the old-fashioned way."
marv emphasis on the evolution of the student's paper rather than on the end product, the idea was to improve the final product by helping in the process.
To help achieve this goal, an additional semester was added to give students more writing experience. The first semester,
"There is no one good writing; the principles are broad. An appropriate piece of writing is one that is appropriate for the audience and the purpose," Bamberg said.
One example of this is the five-paragraph essay, consisting of an introduction, three developmental paragraphs and a
"I wasn't surprised by it (the editorial), but I would disagree with its arguments,” said Charles Merzbacher, an instructor in the FWP.
Merzbacher said that other universities' freshman writing programs are so structured that the director can look at his watch and know exactly what each class is doing at that minute.
"I'm sure if we had a program like that you'd hear a much louder roar of complaint," he said.
In 1978 the FWP was restructured from the more traditional approach of teaching writing to a new workshop approach. Developed only within the last 15 years, the workshop was totally innovative. By placing the pri-
101a, was made a learning experience only — free from grades.
This point, in particular, is controversial among students. While students do not receive a grade for the 101a class, the grade earned in 101b, the second part of the program, is worth eight units.
"It's a process approach," Bamberg said of the workshop technique. "It shows new things the student can do and is only now being developed. We are only now training professionals in the rhetoric field. We represent the cutting edge in change."
Bamberg also emphasized that the program is designed to help thv students adapt to change.
conclusion — the most common essay type taught in high school.
"The five paragraph essay is fine for writing in high school but it doesn't work for anything you want to develop in greater depth," Bamberg said.
Some students take the five paragraph essay too literally and fail to expand and adapt it to suit complex academic concepts. FWP tries to present assignments that enable the students to break away from this writing style.
"In sophisticated conceptualization writing you need more of an evolutionary approach," Bamberg said.
"What would seem to be a dream come true for freshmen has instead turned into a night-
mare. We hear reports of basic teaching incompetence and — worse still — great doubts about the program's ability to improve a student’s writing skills.”
Students have traditionally berated the Freshman Writing Program, both the older, more traditional approach of several years ago, as well as the newer, more innovative one being utilized today.
But it seems students aren't alone in their condemnations. Faculty members, too, find problems with the program. According to Bamberg, their complaints deal primarily with poor writing style, lack of adaptability and limited vocabulary.
Bamberg agrees with these accusations to an extent. She insists that while some students fail to come out of the program with a perfected writing style, compared to their original, it's vastly improved.
And while the program is working on adaptability, Bamberg feels it is unrealistic for professors to expect the program to remove all of these problems.
FWP's staff realizes some problems exist and is willing to change the program any way it can to benefit students and achieve its goals.
Researchers are continually updating data, searching for new ways to teach students writing skills.
Tomorrow: a closer look at changing attitudes in the Freshman Writing Program.