Ethnic studies major may begin in fall
By TIM TAYLOR and STELLA HEE
A proposal to set up an interdisciplinary ethnic studies program to begin next fall was approved unanimously by the University Curriculum Committee yesterday.
The proposal, which has already been endorsed bv Dr. Charles G. Mayo, dean of the College of Letter, Arts and Sciences, is now on the desk of Dr. Milton C. Kloetzel, vice-president in charge of research and graduate affairs.
KloetzePs approval and the concurrence of President Topping and the Board of Trustees are the only steps remaining before implimentation of the program can be started.
The proposal calls for the program to begin in September of this year. It will lead to a B.A. in ethnic studies.
Ethnic studies will be the only major offered, but the interdisciplinary composition of the program will allow students to specialize in either Afro-American studies or Mexican-American studies. Expansion to include programs in Asian-American and
American-Indian studies is also envisioned.
The program will be structured similarly to the current Latin American Studies program and will include courses in history, culture and current problems of the various ethnic groups.
Courses will be drawn from the departments of anthropology, fine arts, English, history, music, political science, psychology, public administration, religion, sociology and speech.
Dr. Walter R. Fisher, associate professor of speech, is chairman of the committee which drew up the proposal. His group, which is actually a sub-committee, is made up of six faculty members and five students.
In an interview with the Daily Trojan last night, Fisher said, “The program is a response to an academic need of the university and a great social need of our time.”
Here, unlike in many other universities where ethnic studies programs are being added to the curricula, no new department will be created.
“A program that takes advantage of faculty and courses that already exist would be easier to implement,” Fisher said.
“Also, an interdisciplinary program will permit a much wider range of discussion of ethnic problems.”
The committee’s proposal also calls for an immediate search to locate and hire one or two qualified faculty members to coordinate and direct the ethnic studies program.
The committee made two specific recommendations for the job: Dr. Boniface I. Obichere and Dr. Rudy Acuna.
Obichere, who was born and raised in Biafra, holds a Ph.D. from Oxford University and is currently a visiting professor of history at UCLA.
Acuna, who was listed as “preferred” by the United Mexican-American Students when they made their demands last month, is now thought to be out of the running because of the position he accepted two days ago as head of the new
Mexican-American Studies Department at San Fernando State.
Fisher said two or three freshman or sophomore level introductory courses will be drawn up for next fall.
“These courses will be designed to orient the students of ethnic studies to the nature, scope and research methods related to this field of study,” he said.
Fisher also outlined what lies ahead for his committee:
“The next steps in the development of the program, are the recruitment of qualified Afro-American, Mexican-American and Asian-American faculty, determination of the requirements for a major in ethnic studies, and acquisition of library and other resource materials.”
Fisher’s committee has been working on the program since the middle of October. Five months later, with only one more hurdle to go, he said he is optimistic that the proposal will be approved soon, and that USC will have an ethnic studies program next fall.
^ I • I	University of Southern California
Cah!nabUn1edRU.S. DAILY® TROJAN
By MELODY GILLARD News editor
The United States’ ability to influence Soviety-Red China relationships has increased radically in recent years, Harrison Salisbury, assistant managing editor of the New York Times, said during yesterday’s forum.
Salisbury, who won the Pulitzer Prize for excellence in foreign reporting in 1954, told how he foresees President Nixon will handle foreign diplomatic relations and where the problem areas lie. The talk, which was sponsored by the Great Issues Forum, drew nearly a capacity crowd to Hancock Auditorium.
Salisbury said he felt the relationship between Russia and China is worsening and that both countries are eager to know which side the United States is leaning toward.
“If Russia and Red China are willing to set up talks, it is not
because they have suddenly become friendly,” Salisbury said. “It is caused by the nature of Russian-Chinese relations which are teeter-tottering on the verge of armed conflict.”
He said this situation gives the United States the ability to maneuver and to obtain a perfect bargaining position. He added that there is only one flaw—the United States has no diplomatic contact with China.
Salisbury, a noted writer who has spent many years behind the Iron Curtain, said he is hopeful that talks can be held, even though the Chinese called off the negotiations that were scheduled to begin yesterday in Warsaw. The cancelled talks were planned to discuss five points for peaceful coexistence.
“China is far too important for the United States to lose interest,” Salisbury said. “We can’t leave it out of the world picture.”
He said he felt President Nixon has a well-versed overview of the world and may possibly be able to end the war in Vietnam before the end of this year. Salisbury first met Nixon in 1959, when the then vice-president was in Russia for talks with Premier Khruschev.
During the debates Nixon handled himself extremely well, Salisbury said, adding that his esteem for Nixon stems largely from this event.
Salisbury said he thinks Nixon is vitally concerned with the situation in the Middle East, because it is the one place in the world where small countries could conceivably provoke the great powers into war.
“It is no surprise that the United States has moved forward through the United Nations into diplomatic consultations with our friends in Western Europe and the Soviet Union,” Salisbury said. “They too see that the Middle East is the one place in the world where surrogate powers might prompt the super powers to take sides and move toward a head-on collision.”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1969, VOL. LX. NO. 74
Professor sees drug-controlled education as possible in future
(UPI)—Education may someday be in the hands of hybrid experts using brain-control drugs as well as psychological and educational skills, said Dr. David Krech, professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, in an address to the American Association of School Administrators this week.
Krech referred to experiments in which hereditarily inferior, but drug-treated, rats outperformed hereditarily superior ones in navigating a maze.
“We have a chemical memory pill which not only improves memory and learning but can make all mice equal whom God or genetics created unequal,” he said.
“May I suggest that some place in the back of your minds, you might begin to speculate on what it can mean—socially, educationally, politically—if and when we find drugs which will be similarly effective for human beings.”
Further research on rats, conducted by Krech and others at Berkeley, showed that rats kept in enriched environment developed brains with heavier cortexes, better blood supply and larger brain cells.
Krech said that if brains of rats and humans are similar in certain respects, “bigger and better human brains or smaller and meaner ones” could be developed.
“The wonderous promises of a glorious future, or the horrors of a Huxlian Brave New World, are fairly self-evident,” he said.
With such brain-control drugs, and with appropriate education and training procedures, the development of the child’s mind could be controlled to acquire the knowledge and skills of the biochemist, pharmacologist, neurologist, psychologist and education, he said.
TONIGHT IS LAST CHANCE TO ENTER SONGFEST ’69
Applications for Songest '69 participiants will be available in Student Union 226 until tonight.
Songfest chairman, Dennis Kirshner, said yesterday that there are places to sing for almost anyone who signs up.
"Those needing any sort of help can obtain it through the directors' clinics/' Kirshner said.
The first clinic is Feb. 25, at 3:30 p.m. in Student Union 204.
Festival to focus on creative arts
The Living Theatre, the USC String Quartet, poetry and student films will all be a part of the Festival of the Arts which begins next week.
Monday noon, the festival will open with a poetry reading by -Jack Hirschman in the Student Activities Center. Hirschman’s latest collection of lyrical poems, “Blain Alephe,” will be published this year by Trigram Press of London.
Also included in the schedule for Monday will be a poetry reading by Judson Jerome at 1:15 p.m. in Founders Hall room 129. A professor of literature at Antioch College, Jerome will discuss “The Last Decade in American Poetry, 1958-1968.”
The first presentation of the Living Theatre will be at 8:30 p.m. Monday in Bovard Auditorium. The performance, titled “Mysteries,” is open to both students and the public.
Tuesday’s activities will begin with a student and faculty poetry reading session at
noon in Alumni Park. Then at 1:15 p.m. student films will be featured in Founders Hall, room 133. The Living Theatre will again highlight the evening with a performance of “Frankenstein.”
On Wednesday, music at noon will feature the USC String Quartet in Hancock Auditorium. A poetry reading by W.S. Merwin will follow. Merwin, who majored in Romance languages at Princeton, recently completed Selected Translations 1948-1968, his 12th book of verse in 16 years.
David Lourie, a film producer, will appear at 3 p.m. in the Student Activities Center. The day will end with another performance of “Frankenstein” at 8:30 p.m. in Bovard Auditorium.
William Eastlake, a novelist, will discuss “Revolution Among the Indians” at noon Thursday in the Student Activities Center. Author of The Bronc People, Portrait of an Artist with 26 Horses, and Castle Keep,
Eastlake will present readings from his novels.
Student films at 1:15 p.m. in Hancock Auditorium and the Living Theatre’s performance of “Antigone” at 8:30 p.m. in Bovard will conclude Thursday’s activities.
Planned for Friday is another student and faculty poetry reading session in Alumni Park. Later in the afternoon, at 1:15 in the Student Activities Center, Robert Creeley will read his poetry. The latest work of the author, poet and short story writer is “Words,” which was published in 1966.
The Living Theatre’s Friday night entry in the Festival of Arts will be “Paradise Now.” The curtain will rise in Bovard at 8:30 p.m.
The weekend will feature two final performances by the Living Theatre. On Saturday, March 1, the play “Mysteries” will again be presented on the Bovard Stage at 8:30. Sunday night the Festival of Arts will come to a close with the final presentation by the Living Theatre, “Paradise New.”
Poet to use music, rhythm today at
noon
A new form of contemporary7 poetry, sculptured sound, using dynamics of music and rhythm, will be presented at noon today in Student Activities Center 205 by Toby Lurie, a poet from Santa Barbara.
The avant-garde poet will read his own verse and conduct a poetry workshop for USC students and faculty sponsored by the Associated Students’ Forum for Student Awareness.
Lurie has found a new medium of expression for poetry readings, in both reading and speaking.
“I fuse words with music but
I	keep it in a spoken form,” Lurie said. “The essence of my work is experimentation and simplicity.”
In his previous recitals, Lurie has offered several types of poetry. Through his one-word poetry, using arithmetic, children and tempo, he created various images and colors within the imaginary world.
A native of Seattle, Lurie is author of the book Measured Space, which was published a year ago. His first LP record, “Word Trips.” will be released soon.