Buchwald offers money to anti-authority student
By Catherine Miller
Staff Writer
Are you anti-establishment, contemptuous of authority and "willing to bite the hand that feeds you?" If you are a journalism student and fit the above description, you may be eligible for the Art Buchwald Scholarship.
Art Buchwald, nationally syndicated columnist and author, has donated funds to provide an annual $1,000 scholarship. The scholarship is intended to benefit a journalism student who "shows the most promise as a humorist and satirist," said Buchwald in a letter to Bryce Nelson, director of the School of Journalism.
"If the person is on probation for something he or she wrote, that should be considered a plus," Buchwald added.
Buchwald originally wanted to privately donate money for student assistance. "He was hesitant to have a scholarship named after him," Nelson said.
But Nelson requested that the donation be named after Buchwald because he is popular with students and the recipients would enjoy knowing the scholarship came from Buchwald.
Buchwald attended this university from 1946 to 1948, but he was not a journalism major. He did, however, write two regular columns for the Daily Trojan, one under his own name and a
second satirical one under the name of Howard Lindhoffer. "Howard Lindhoffer" reported on the activities of the "O My Gawd Sorority," Buchwald wrote in an interview conducted with himself in 1982.
In the same interview, Buchwald said he still had a warm spot for the university. "They let me do my own thing, and I had a great time and I'm proud of the school," Buchwald wrote. "Besides, I have to have a warm spot in my heart for any place that would take me in as a student."
Buchwald made a bet while he and some friends, who are Notre Dame alumni, were watching USC playing Notre
Dame in the "mudbowl," Nelson said. According to Nelson, the loser had to donate a $2,000 scholarship to his alma mater.
Buchwald didn't donate the money when he lost the bet, but it "set him thinking about a scholarship," Nelson said.
All interested applicants must submit one to three humorous essays or articles by 5 p.m. on April Fool's Day to Denton Holland, director of student affairs at the School of Journalism, in GFS 312. The subject is simple. "Something humorous," Holland said.
Holland said three faculty members of the School of Journalism, who have been "certified by the federal government
and Woody Allen as humorous," will judge the entries.
"If you're not feeling particularly funny and still wish to apply," Holland said, "you should listen to a Steve Martin album on how to get funny." Holland suggests that the student should try putting baloney in his shoes before writing the essay.
Buchwald concluded his letter announcing his scholarship contribution with this disclaimer: "Finally, I'm not responsible for the student getting a job, getting published, or even for talking to him if I don't want to."
And the winner doesn't even have to say thank you, Buchwald said.
trojan
Volume XCVIIi, Number 40
University of Southern California
Monday, March 11, 1985
Senate resolution sets up task force to shorten time in student judiciary
By James Jones
Assistant City Editor
The Peer Review Board, the university's student-operated judicial system, has been criticized for being inefficient and too lenient, but the process appears to be merely hampered by time constraints.
A Student Senate resolution passed on Feb. 13 will allow a task force to be set up after the senate elections to evaluate the peer review^ process and to recommend changes to make the system more efficient.
Bret Fausett, undergraduate vice president for the Student Senate, is concerned with the complaints he has heard about peer review. "I hear a lot of complaints about the long lag time between when an incident is written up and the person coming up before the Peer Review Board. Some of the reviews take months."
Fausett, a one-time member of a review board, said, "I’m not certain that the system of learning from sanctions really works. Stronger punitive action should be considered."
"There also doesn't seem to be a lot of continuity between the penalties for the same infraction," he said.
Fausett, who authored the senate resolution, thinks there is a solution available to help cut down the lag time. "The logical step, I would think, would be to increase the number of panels."
Cece Freeman, coordinator for the Peer Review Board, agreed that increasing the number of review panels might help. "The problem with that, though, is more staff advisers would have to be hired. We have one for each panel and we would definitely need more staff to help."
Currently, there are five review panels, four of which deal with residence hall and apartment incidents, and the fifth, which handles Row-related
problems. The panels consist of 3 to 5 members, most of whom are students who rotate from panel to panel, and the other member is a faculty adviser.
The panels handle an average of 168 cases a year that range from theft and property damage to playing music too loud.
The reason for the amount of lag time, Freeman explained, has to do with the processes involved with the system. She added it isn't anyone's fault.
First, a complaint form must be filed by the student to the review board office. Freeman said students often delay in filing a report and this further delays the review date.
Next, the review board sets up a review date with the complainer and the complainee. "We have to deal with a number of schedules, the students, the advisers and the faculty members," she said. "We usually complete a review in two to three weeks. That's fast considering if you use the regular court system just setting a date will be months away."
Freeman said that within two weeks after the peer review board has chosen a sanction, either side can appeal the decision. Once the decision is appealed it is sent to an appeals review board at the university's Law Center.
Once there, law students and faculty members review each case and decide if a hearing should be granted.
If the board does not find grounds for a hearing, it upholds the peer review board decision. If the board does find grounds for a hearing, lawyers are then allowed to represent each side and the subsequent decision could take a year after the incident occurred.
Freeman said she is pleased the senate is involved in making recommendations. "I think there is always room for change and improvement."
Students face crisis with Reagan aid cuts
By Jennifer Cray
Assistant City Editor
During the last few weeks, President Reagan and newly appointed Secretary of Education William J. Bennett have made clear their desire to substantially cut federal student aid programs.
The President told a convention of private school principals on Feb. 28 that there is a considerable number of people who abuse federal financial aid, and that poor families subsidize the educations of the rich. Bennett said that some students, on federal student aid will have to plan on some divestitures — "like a stereo divestiture, or a three-weeks-at-the-beach divestiture."
Michael Halloran, dean of admission and financial aid, said the students receiving federal financial aid, such as Guaranteed Student Loans, Pell Grants and work study, do need financial help to pay for their college education.
"The vast majority of recipients need the money," Halloran said in an interview Friday.
"If they don't get the money they have to get it some other way or change their lives," he said. These changes might include going from a private to a public school, postponing their education to earn money or dropping out altogether, he said.
While "there's no doubt" there are people who abuse the system, "there are very few, relatively speaking," he said. The government is "taking the approach of penalizing the many in order to correct the abuses of the few," he said.
Reagan's proposed budget includes plans to prevent students from families earning more than $25,000 from receiving federal grants, and excluding families making more than $32,500 from the GSL program.
Deciding which students need federal aid to attend college and which students do not is "a matter of definition," Halloran said. While the Reagan administration's policies put the level at $25,000, Halloran said a family of four living in Los Angeles could be living in poverty.
"The administration is trying to treat financial aid to students as a welfare problem and not an investment" in the education of Americans, he said.
Reducing student aid in the name of cost-efficiency is "penny-wise and pound-foolish," he said, citing the administration's desire to cut bank subsidies that compensate for low GSL interest rates.
"Students are not in a position to make interest payments while in school. To make larger payments would increase the default rate," costing the federal government more money in the end, he said.
Halloran said the issue of financial aid has nothing to do with beach vacations. Students on financial aid "don't have a lot of money to spend and they're not spending federal dollais" on stereos, cars and three-week vacations, he said.
He said he knows from his own experience in college that students do take vacations at the beach, especially during spring break. However, students' vacations are more likely to be "six kids cramming into a car and driving 1 500 miles and camping out on the beach."
Halloran said he believes the view’ that the student aid budget is too big is a minority opinion in Washington, but he is not sure how large that minority is. Though the Senate Budget Committee rejected Reagan’s student aid cuts Thursday, it is still too early to predict the outcome of the entire budget process, he said.
The Reagan budget, submitted to Congress last month, calls for cuts in domestic programs and increases in the defense budget, resulting in a battle splitting congressmen mainly along party lines.
(Continued on page 11)