University of Southern California
DAILY • TROJAN
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, FRIDAY. FEBRUARY 21, 1969, VOL. LX, NO. 75
University awarded $150,000 grant to study effects of oil spill damage on sea life
A grant of $150,000 to conduct a study of the effect of the Santa Barbara Channel oil spill on the ecology of the channel was awarded to the university by the Western Oil and Gas Association.
The amount of the grant is estimated to be the cost of one full year of study. The association said it would make available additional funds during the following year if more time is necessary to complete the study.
In making the grant the association urged USC to work closely with all federal and state agencies interested in the problem. It further asked that the university work closely with
other academic institutions and qualified personnel throughout the area so that all information and interpretation could be applied fully and completely to the question of what damage has occurred to plant and animal life in the channel.
The university will probably set up sampling stations at regular intervals along the Santa Barbara Channel coastline and along the
Channel Inlands where tests will be made of all the organisms that might have been affected. Also included will be a study in deeper waters across the channel.
Meeting to focus on student power
Concerts highlight weekend activities
This weekend’s entertainment includes a student-faculty basketball game in the men’s gymnasium, a rock concert at noon today, and three concerts on Saturday and Sunday.
Day spring, a group that recently played in Long Beach, will be featured in the patio of the Student Activities Center at noon today. This will be the second in a series of concerts to be presented by the ASSC Entertainment Committee.
Tomorrow, Malcolm Hamilton will give a harpsichord recital at 8:30 p.m. in Hancock Auditorium. Admission will be $1 for students and $2 for the public.
Sunday’s music includes a free concert in Hancock Auditorium at 4 p.m. and a free performance by the USC Symphony Orchestra featuring student soloists in Bovard Auditorium at 8:30 p.m.
What was supposed to be a sign-out card burning at an ASSC Executive Council meeting yesterday turned into a sign-out card tearing-up at an ASSC council non-meeting, due to a lack of quorum. Bill Mauk, ASSC President, gets help in tearing up the cards from Jerry Finch, right. Mauk said he stole the sign-out cards last Friday night
from women's dormitory, College Hall, and hopes
to use the resultant judicial review as a springboard to a university-wide debate on the concept of in loco parentis. Mauk will get his chance Wednesday, at 7:30 p.m. in the Student Activities Center, when the Men's Judicial will hear the case of the University of Southern California vs. Bill Mauk.
Photo by Bob Market
Peace Corpsman tells of tragedy of Biafran War
By MICHAEL HARRIS
Over five million people in Biafra believe that if they loose the war, they will die, said Patrick Barry, a Peace Corps volunteer who just returned from two years in Nigeria.
Barry was speaking at an open meeting of Blue Key, the national men’s honorary fraternity, Wednesday. He did not give much hope for lasting peace even if some sort of settlement can be found to the current war.
“When you see a small child who is no larger than your arm because he is starving to death and he’s seen his mother raped and his father killed, you know that he’s not going to forget it,” Barry said. “So you ask yourself, when the fighting stops this time, how long will it take to start up again.”
Barry spoke in a quiet tone to the 18 people gathered around the table and gave a history of the war and why it started.
“Racial prejudice over there is just as strong, if not 100 times stronger, than it is here, only over there it’s called tribalism,” Barry said.
Before the war started, Barry told the group, there were over 58,000 Ebo people murdered for no other reason that that they were Ebos. After that, the Ebos fled into what is now Biafra, and plans were started to secede from Nigeria.
“When the war started, the government had about 5,000 men in arms,” Barry said. “Now they have 185,000 troops and the Biafrans have about 68,000. Everyone in Nigeria said that the war would be over in a few months, and they keep saying that, but it’s into the 20th month.”
Barry, who is 26, kept any emotions that he
might have on the subject down to a minimum as he talked about the war, the starving people and those who were massacred before the war.
Barry discribed the main conflict as coming from the differences between the houses of the major tribes and the Ebos. The Ebos, he said, are similar to the New York Jew or the Boston Irishman in that they are business minded.
The Ebos moved into the major regions of the houses and started setting up businesses which the houses didn’t like. This added to the tribal hatred that had been part of Nigeria’s history, Barry said.
“As far as the U.S. is concerned,” Barry said, “it is neutral over the war. But France has a major stake in the Biafrans because they hold almost all of the oil rights which the Biafran government signed over to them in exchange for credit.
“The Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia are aiding the Nigerians and it’s rumored that Chinese troops have been helping the Biafrans.
“The war seems like it will just go on because the Biafrans are using guerilla warfare. As one Nigerian said to me: ‘The roads are ours in the daytime and up for grabs at night.’ ”
After discussing the war for more than an hour, the subject turned to the Peace Corps in general and what a young man might expect to get out of it after two years service.
“I was tired of just doing everything for myslef,” Barry said. “You find that when you get over there, there is so much that you have been missing. And it’s not so much what you do over there, it’s what you do with what you have learned when you come back.”
Student power has been a major topic on college campuses during the past year, with the results at many schools being complete anarchy. Through it all USC has remained silent, but some feel the time has come for an evaluation of the student’s role at the university.
A seven-hour-long Student Power Conference, which will be held Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Religious Center, hopes to change campus attitudes on the subject.
The conference will focus entirely on USC—it’s policies and problems—and it will bring together for the first time all the major student groups on campus.
Representatives from The Resistance, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Black Students Union, United Mexican American Students and the ASSC will speak. Members of the administration and faculty will also be represented.
Norman Wright, a graduate assistant on the Religious Center staff, and Danniel Brandt, a member of The Resistance and SDS, planned the day-long conference, which is sponsored by the Religious Center.
When asked the reason for arranging such a conference at USC, Brandt said:
“There are a lot of groups on campus that are student power oriented, but they have never gotten together.
“I think we could learn from each other and a lot of things could be done if we were united.” For example, Brandt told of the. possibility of printing an underground newspaper, if the various groups would agree to pool their time and resources.
According to Brandt, the conference will serve two purposes:
“One to see if anything productive can come out of the bringing together of all the campus groups, and two, to provide an opportunity for the student who hasn’t been involved with a first-hand account of what’s happening on this campus.”
The biggest problem facing the conference, Brandt said, will be in trying to get all factions of the student community to agree on major points.
“I’m afraid the only thing we’ll agree on is the fact that we all disagree,” said Brandt.
The conference will begin with a panei discussion. Representatives from the entire gamut of university organizations—from administration to student leftist groups—have been asked to join the panel.
Following an open discussion and lunch, the conference will split into smaller groups to discuss specific problems under two general headings. “What Do We Want?” and “What Can We Do About It?”
One group will deal with the topic “Minority Problems Within USC.” This discussion will be primarily concerned with the Afro-American and Mexican-American study programs, the prospects of getting more minority scholarships and the existence of institutionalized racism in some areas of campus life.
The group will also discuss the Hoover Renewal project and the problem of educating students about the surrounding community.
A second major topic will be USC’s “Quality of Education.” Students and administrative officials will discuss ideas such as student representation on curriculum committees and the Board of Trustees, a pass-fail grading system and a change in physical education and foreign language requirements.
Complaints concerning inadequate counseling services, student-faculty relations and the student media—the Daily Trojan and KUSC—will also be aired during the conference.
The question of the political neutrality of the university will be viewed in light of USC’s participation in programs such as ROTC, campus recruiting; and the Center on Communist Strategy and Propaganda.
Dorm regulations, student government, student courts and the university’s speakers policy and literature code will be under discussion in a session on “Quality of Administration and Student Rights.”
Those attending the conference will then meet in a final session to decide what to do to bring about constructive changes in the university. Possible tactics and ways to counter campus apathy will be considered.
Any student interested in attending the USC Student Power Conference should call Alvin Rudisill, at 746-6114, to make a reservation.