Daily Troian
vol. Ixv no. 48
University of Southern California
los angeles, California
friday, december 1, 1972
Students file suit over proposed tuition boost
Urban Semester recruiter
Steve Gail, an ex-USC student, played the organ in front of Von KleinSmid Center during lunchtime, Thursday, to help recruit for the Urban Semester program.
Gail, who has seven years experience working clubs
and concerts, primarily plays the organ. He likes playing on campus because he v.^nts to get students’ opinions on his performances. Gail often visits Friday and Sunday afternoons from 3 to 6 p.m. DT photo by Rich Simon.
By Barbara Wegher
staff writer
A group of campus law students, calling themselves the Tuition Action Committee, is launching suit against the university, in order to prevent the probably $210 rise in tuition, next year.
Charles Di Salvo, a spokesman for the group, said that the committee is accusing the university of being in violation of Section III, Part D of the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities. That section states that “no increase in tuition or fees shall be made without prior discussion with the students through their official representatives.”
“The university and the students have an agreement with each other when the student enters this situation,” said DiSalvo. “The university promises to provide him with a degree and the student agrees to give the university money.
“This is a violation at least in spirit if not in the letter of the regulation because one side has changed the agreements of the contract without consulting the other side,” he said.
The move to stop a possible further increase in tuition began in the spring, after undergraduate tuition was raised $310 and law students’ tuition went up $450, Di Salvo said.
After the committee was formed, efforts began to raise the needed funds to support such an action, and specifically to secure an attorney. Jack Levine, of the Levy and Van Burgh law firm consented to handle the case.
During this time, the committee contacted Carl
Franklin, vice-president of financial and legal affairs. The main purpose of the discussion was to find out the reasons for the tuition hike. “We had a very dissatisfying interview with him,” said Di Salvo. “He monopolized the conversation and treated the students like children.”
“After we made preparations for the case we went to see Franklin again and tried to persuade him to roll back tuition. Needless to say we tried to no avail,” he said.
Franklin was unavailable for comment Thursday afternoon.
Cites lack of concern
“The university has a very high-handed approach in this area,” Di Salvo said. “It doesn’t have much concern for the students, much less their financial abilities.”
Di Salvo acknowledged that there is a financial problem at the university, “but it is not because of lack of funds. I’d like to see the university use its money more wisely.”
“The fact that other universities have high tuitions doesn’t take into account the tremendously high percentage that ours has been raised in two years (approximately 30% for the Law Center and 28% for undergraduates.)’
“But the main thrust of our suit is that the university didn’t consult with the students before the increase. I think we have a very strong case, but at least we’ll make things more difficult for the university.”
RACIAL UNITY SOUGHT
Rally urges white involvement
By Chip Collins
White involvement in the struggles of minorities was the theme of the noon memorial rally held Thursday at Tommy Trojan for two Southern University students shot earlier this month.
The speakers said that the black, brown, white and yellow peoples of the world must unite in the struggle for freedom and equality in education.
The rally, attended by only
about 100 people, was deemed successful by Herb Wills, president ofthe Black Student Union, but it was apparent that an organist-singer was gaining more attention across Alumni Park.
During the rally Wills warned that. “White America must wake up.”
He related the Southern University students’ struggle to the struggle of USC minority students when he cautioned that,
“What happened at Southern University could have happened here, for the university has shown no interest or concern in Black students on campus.”
At the outset of the rally, a petition was circulated condemning the killings of the two students and a collection was taken for a defense league and for the families involved.
Approximately 200 signatures and $50 in cash, were gathered.
Woman irked at nude posters tears one up
Two members of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity, selling posters of a nude woman proclaiming USC’s football success, were confronted by a woman, who took one of the posters, and tore it up, Thursday.
The men, Carlos Fonseca and Sergio Porto, were sellc ing the posters for $1 each to help finance their fraternity's pledge program.
The incident occured about 12:30 p.m. in front of Tommy
Trojan, where a rally was being held in memory of two students recently slain at Southern University.
After ripping the poster, Lisa Ross went to a microphone used for the rally and told the crowd gathered for the memorial that “they (the fraternity men) could raise more money exploiting women than these speakers could for the oppressed people of the world.”
University seeks students with variety of backgrounds
This article briefly reviews admissions standards at the university in recent times.
Other aspects of students admissions will be discussed in forthcoming articles, including the student-recruitment drive and its implications for academic standards and university finances; what factors influence a studeyit's decision to come to USC; how decisions on students are made in the Admissiojis Office; long-range trends in admissions.
The crucial question of student financial aid will follow the articles on admission.
By Peter Wong
associate editor One of the major concerns of any university, including USC, is the admission of the brightest, most talentecd students possible for its full-time academic programs.
The students, ideally, should represent a wide range of backgrounds—economic, geographical and racial—and should have
diverse interests.
However, until the late 1950s, many students attended USC only part-time and more than 70% of the student body came from the Los Angeles area. The university did not have enough residence halls, so relatively few students lived on or near campus.
This situation changed somewhat for the better in the years after Norman Topping became president in October, 1958.
One of the policy goals of the Master Plan, a program of campus improvements announced in May, 1961, was the admission of students from a wider range of backgrounds, including more from outside the Los Angeles area.
A limit of 20.000 was placed on total student enrollment, 60% (or 12,000) to be full-time graduate and professional study, the rest to be undergraduates. Additional housing would be built so that more students would be able to live on or near campus.
Because the university 1 imited
its enrollment, admissions policies consequently would be more selective, thereby insuring the brightest, most talented students possible.
During the 1960s, some progress was evident. Each new
A priority for the ’70s
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freshman class was brighter than the last, as measured by test scores and high school grade-point averages, and was slowly becoming more representative in economic and racial backgrounds.
USC’s student body was changing in its geographical composition, too, although Los Angeles metropolitan area residents are still dominant—67%.
Two new residence halls —Birnkrant for women, Marks Tower for men—were built dur-
ing the early 1960s, plus two new w ings ofCollege-University Hall and the entire Married Students Complex, which added to student living space on campus and definitely encouraged more fulltime students.
In April, 1970, with the Master Plan well on its way to completion. the Board of Trustees adopted A Priority for the 70s, a program of academic improvements concentrating on undergraduate education and liberal arts in general.
One of the program’-s dollar goals referred to the establishment of a student talent search and counseling center, to be funded at $200,000 annually.
This center would have implemented one of the policy goals of A Priority for the 70s—“development of systematic programs for the recruitment, advisement and retention of a well-balanced undergraduate student body.”
Apparently the center was envisioned as a combination of the Admissions Office, the
Advisement Office ofthe College of Letters. Arts and Sciences, and the University Counseling Center.
What has happened since 1970?
Although student admissions has not been downgraded as a major concern—there is no way to ignore it—the perspective has changed drastically.
Thecompetition ofhigh school students to get into college, strong in the 1960s, is no longer present. The number of part-time students and student enrollment as a whole in fall, 1971, dropped eight percent from the previous year.
Despite the careful balancing measures for the 1971-72 budget, the unexpected decrease in student enrollment was threatening to cause a $1.2-million deficit, given the loss of income from student tuition.
“We had to take emergency measures in this situation. We had to increase tuition by $310—the largest in USC’s his-(Continued on page 2)