University of Southern California
DAILY • TROJAN
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, THURSDAY, APRIL 17,1969, VOL. LX, NO. 105
UNIVERSITY SENATE
USC - community committee asked
The University Senate voted yesterday to establish a standing university committee to deal with the relationship between the university and the community.
The senate’s recommendation will now go to President Topping, who is responsible for appointing and approving all university committees.
The motion, which was made by Prof. Harold S. Spear, associate professor of management, read:
“Resolved; that there be very promptly established a standing university committee on university-community affairs, whose membership shall include administrators and students as well as faculty. Until such time as the usual procedures can be used for staffing this committee, the immediate membership shall be decided by the president based on nominations from the chairman of the Senate and the president of the ASSC council. The duties of this committee shall be: To examine and offer recommendations concerning the university’s role as a neighbor and participant in the community, most especially the immediately surrounding community, but not limited solely to that.”
After an attempt to table the motion was defeated, it was carried on a voice vote with only one member dissenting.
“When I introduced the
motion I remembered a speaker who talked to the Senate last fall who had asked whether USC was a good neighbor,” Prof. Spear said in an interview after the meeting. “And if one looks at the surrounding area one wonders.
“The purpose of this committee would be to take a deep look at how we do affect the community; how we can affect the community; what kind of resources exist; and what kind of resources are needed to make as good sense as we can as a caring neighbor.”
Prof. Spear said he hopes the committee will be established within the next month.
SOCIAL ACTION SPEECH TODAY
Dr. William J. Williams, professor of public administration and director of the Center for Social Action, will discuss "Redirection of Social Involvement" in a speech today at noon in Administration 305.
The speech is sponsored by the Greek Week Committee. Other Greek Week activities include the Righteous Brothers concert tonight and the Greek Week Ball tomorrow night.
Songfest 'discrimination’ said symptom of USC
By MIKE PARFIT Editor
The treatment given to a black group by the Songfest Committee is only a minor example of the kind of treatment blacks receive from all sides of this university, Bob Silva, chairman of the Black Students Union (BSU), said yesterday.
The black group, made up of six BSU members, competed in the Songfest preliminaries, was disqualified, appealed the decision to the Songfest Committee and was turned dowa
“This is just a symptom of USC,” Silva said in an interview. “All the problems and frustrations of black students here are symptoms of being excluded.”
The BSU, he said, had originally been invited to participate “to change the structure of Songfest.” When the group developed an act, he continued, it asked if the three-minute monologue which was its basis would be acceptable.
“Dennis Kirshner (a cochairman of the Songfest Committee) told us that we could use it but that he couldn’t guarantee that we would get through the prelims,” Silva said. “The way we interpreted it and the way anyone would interpret it was that the monologue was acceptable but that you can’t insure anyone making it through the preliminaries.”
When the group appealed the judges’ decision, it was told that the primary reason for disqualification was that the monologue did not fit the format in the small group category, in which the group was entered.
“But we should be expected to be a bit different,” Silva said. “We represent a culture and a community and a way of
thinking that is something new and is felt only by us and should be created and expressed by us.
“Our format, which was the monologue presentation as opposed to music, was our most effective way of communication. It also seemed in keeping with changing the format of Songfest.”
Silva dismissed the reasons given by Kirshner for rejecting the BSU’s appeal, saying they were irrational. Kirshner had said that the group did not meet the qualifications and that to accept it would be unfair to the other groups involved.
“It all points to the same thing—that there was an absence of communication,” Silva said. “Any judging in this case was racist. Whether we were
accepted or rejected the judging would have been racist. We shouldn’t be judged; we should appear as guests.”
Silva indicated that the protest will continue, until all
“internal
exhausted.
channels” are
“I have confidence in the administration to reconsider before there’s an escalation of protest or pressures,” he said.
He did not say what specific action would be taken, but he did indicate that he does not consider this particular issue to be the major one.
‘This is only a beginning,” he said. “This is a lightweight thing. Any time we feel discriminated against individually or collectively we’re going to say something.”
Righteous Brothers head concert tonight
Bobby Hatfield and Jimmy Walker —the Righteous Brothers—will be featured along with Black Pearl in tonight’s Greek Week concert.
Hatfield, whose singing has resulted in the slae of more than 10 million records in the last six years, is famous for such songs as “Ebb Tide” “Unchained Melody,” and “You’ve Lost That Loving Feelin’.”
Jimmy Walker, who replaced Bill Medley late last year as the second Righteous Brother, was formerly with the Knickerbockers, whose recording “Lies” was a million seller.
Black Pearl, which specialized in the so-called “freak-soul” style of music, has appeared at the Whiskey. A-Go-Go, the
Shrine and the Cheetah.
The group’s album, recorded on Atlantic, has been sold out, and is unavailable anywhere in the Los Angeles area.
The concert will be given in Bovard Auditorium beginning at
8:30. Tickets are $3.50, $2.50 and $1.50.
By special arrangement with McKeever’s, those attending the concert may trade in their ticket stubs for a free glass of beer beginning at 10:30.
Tomorrow night’s Greek Week Ball will be the culmination of the week’s festivities. The dance will feature the crowning of the Greek Week king and queen. Music will be provided by “Love” and the “Hollywood All-Stars.”
3-WAY RUN-OFF FOR MHA HEAD
About as close as you can get describes yesterday's vote for the three candidates running for president of the Men's Hall Association.
The candidates, Oskoui Nader, Ron Palmieri and Chris Hynes, polled 71, 69 and
69	votes respectively. A run-off between the three is scheduled for Tuesday.
The polls will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Marks Tower, Town and Gown and the House of Stonier. The winner of the run-off will be decided by a plurality.
Mitch Pomerantz, a sophomore in political science, won his unopposed bid for vice-president with 140 votes. Terry Monroe, freshman, received 92 votes as the write-in candidate for secretary-treasurer.
Students seize N.Y. campus
UPI—Two-hundred student demonstrators seized four floors of the Queens College Administration Building in New York yesterday.
Thirty faculty members barricaded themselves inside offices to guard against possible destruction of college records.
A Harvard University dean who has been in the forefront of administration officials’ dealing with a student strike suffered a mild stroke. Most of Harvard’s 4,800 undergraduates continued to stay away from classes.
A Stanford University official charged that sutdents occupying a research laboratory had broken into desks and tampered with personal correspondence.
On other campuses, a hunger strike began at the University of Chicago, the threat of an injunction ended a sit-in at Columbia University, and there were sit-ins protesting ROTC on campus at the University of Cincinnati and La Salle College.
The Queens demonstrators said they would abandon their occupation of the first, second, 10th and 12th floors of the Administration Building but they threatened a general strike beginning tomorrow.
They demanded an end to on-campus recruiting by firms with military commitments. They also demanded that criminal trespass charges be dropped against 39 students arrested during a sit-in April 1. Queens president Joseph P. McMurray said he would meet another student demand by dropping disclipinary charges against three students who participated in a demonstration last month.
Jimmy Walker, left, and Bobby Hatfield, the Righteous Brothers, will head tonight's Greek Week concert in Bovard.