University of Southern California
DAILY ® TROJAN
VOL. LXI, NO. 71	LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA	WED., FEB. 11,1970
ASSC endorsement of
tuition hike withdrawn
By RICH WISEMAN Assistant city editor
The ASSC Executive Council, in its meeting Tuesday, withdrew its endorsement of the tuition increase and issued a statement that questions the value the administration places on student opinions concerning policy changes.
The statement, which specifically objects to the way the administration handled the tuition proposal, was embellished verbally by Fred Minnes, ASSC president.
“We were used as tools to legitimize their tuition increase,” he said. “They had the nerve to use us as a rubber stamp.”
The ASSC received the resolution during the week of Jan. 5, during which the last regular meeting before final exams was held. iBecause of an impending meeting of the University Senate and the Trustee Committee on Finance they had only a week to consider the resolution. At a special meeting they gave tentative approval to the plan.
“All we were handed was a bunch of facts and figures and told to hurry up,” Minnes said. “When we go to talk to them all they do is drag their feet. But they have the gall to expect students to keep on coming back.”
In part, the statement, which will be presented to Dr. Topping tomorrow or Monday, read: “The ASSC formally rescinds any and all support and endorsement heretofore given the tuition increase until the university administration indicates its good faith by turning its immediate attention to not only our requests concerning tuition policy guidelines but also other proposed policy changes which we have forwarded for their consideration.”
Among the other proposed policy changes not yet reported on by the Administration include the alcohol on campus and the homecoming incident proposals.
Dealing with specifics the statement proposed three procedural safeguards in handling any future shift of tuition policy:
•	That there be at least a year’s notice of any proposed tuition raises except for 1970-71.
•	That the dollar amount of student aid funds be raised sufficiently to offset extra hardships imposed by higher tuitions.
•	That the tuition never be raised more than $200 (subject to inflation) in any given year.
“Power is not a 'bad word,” Mark Savit, ASSC vice-president who coauthored the statement with Stan Diorio, said. “We should have some powers.
“The administration will scratch our name off the letter they’re going to send to parents and send it anyway.
“I hope the students will take note that their representatives have been disregarded.”
Savit based his negative attitude on the fact that Topping and Paul Bloland, vice-president in charge of student and alumni affairs, drafted the changes in the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities, and not the trustees as originally reported.
The statement was violently attacked by the ASSC on the grounds that the trustees were invading students’ rights.
Creative art to be featured
The ASSC Festival of the Arts, a festival of creative activity for both performers and audience, will begin this Saturday and continue for nine days.
At noon every day beginning Feb. 16, there will be free concerts and student poetry readings at the SAC patio.
Mike Moore, singer-guitarist, will open the series, followed by the “Jazz Trinity” on Wednesday; Renaissance Chamber Music on Thursday; and Improvisational Theatre on Friday where performers will inspire audience participation.
Plastic inflatable structures will be on display on Hancock lawn and the Harris Patio. The exhibit will continue through Feb. 21.
Evening events include a series of multimedia presentations at 8 p.m. in Hoffman Hall, including “Black is Beautiful” (Feb. 14); “Vincent Van Gogh: Spirit Then—Spirit Now,” and “Love, Shiftshifts, Superdrag, and Kisses” (Feb. 19); and “Latitude 34° 03’ 15; Longitude 118° 14’ 28”, and “Eero Saarinen and Why We Love Him” (Feb. 22).
The Stop Gap Theatre will feature “Alan Hubbs Presents” and “A Day in the Life of Eddie Marcus” on Monday and Thursday. Admission is 50 cents.
Experimental cinema films will be shown at 8 p.m. at Bovard next Saturday and Sunday; other student films at Bovard on Tuesday and Thursday. Admission for the films will be 50 cents..
Highlighted events are James Joyce Memorial Liquid Theatre, 8 p.m. Monday at Booth Hall, New York Rock and Roil Ensemble, 7:30 and
10	p.m., Wednesday, at Bovard Auditorium, and Erick Hawkins Dance Company, 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday at Bovard.
Tickets are available at the Ticket Office in the Student Union or at the door. There will be a special presale of tickets for the Liquid Theatre in the Student Activities Center on Friday, between noon and 2 p.m.
Biology head explains new semester
By ED MARTIN
An innovative 16-unit, one-semester course in biological studies for nonscience majors will begin next fall, Dr. Bernard Abbott, chairman of the biological science department, said yesterday.
Abbott announced that the course had been accepted by the Curriculum Committee.
The new program, dubbed the Biology Semester, will concentrate on man and his relationship to his crowded urban environment.
It will deal with those areas that specifically affect the layman in modern society, Abbott said, adding that this is contrary to conventional biology courses in which the student learns of biology’s historical development.
Those persons involved in the formulation and development of this concept were Abbott, Dorothy Millington, his assistant, and Dr. Edwin Perkins — all of the biology department.
Instead of the usual lecture-lab class structure in which one instructor and his assistants conduct the course and the labs, the new course will vary the learning experience by offering in-depth presentations from experts on each topic covered.
Laboratory sections will travel to spe-
cific locations, investigating first-hand the problems discussed in the class.
These locations will include the USC marine biology station on Catalina Island, the desert station in Arizona, national and state parks, and other areas of class interests.
Class activities would demand full-time participation from the student.
One of the requirements for registration is that the student would be restricted to the Biology Semester and no other subjects for that semester. The concept is defined as total immersion.
Although total immersion is used in USC’s Urban Semester, the application of the concept to biology may be unique.
The course marks another first for the university in meeting the needs of the layman in a technically-oriented world.
Each topic selected will be the focus of the group’s activity for one or two weeks.
Examples of topics to be covered are pollution, conservation, overpopulation, food limitations, heredity and development, distribution of disease, drug abuse, and adaptation of man >to modern technology.
“In public and private life,” said Abbott, the nonscientific citizen is increasingly called upon, and rightly so, to make
value judgements on the uses of recent scientific developments — knowledge which, if misused, has enormous destructive potential.
“The higher order of understanding required to cope responsibly with these demands has not been accessible to nonscience majors who, in the past, could only enroll in a few peripheral science courses that were directed towards the detailed coverage of relatively narrow fields — too often with little or no emphasis upon a broader applicability to man.”
Although the general concept of the course has been formulated, specifics are still ibeing discussed.
Grading is one area not fully worked out.
Pending Curriculum Committee approval, the course will fulfill the 12-unit general education requirement in natural sciences for LAS students, Perkins said.
As for the remaining four units, the desire of the department is that they could be applied as elective credit.
In other words, if a student elected to take the Biology Semester, his natural science reqirements would be fulfilled in one semester and he would receive an additional four units of electives.
Students would not be the only group to benefit from the course; the Biology Department and USC as a whole could receive recognition and needed operating funds as a direct consequence of the Biology Semester, Perkins said.
DR. BERNARD ABBOTT
USC pancake eater flashes victory sign after downing 140 cakes in the Annual Pancake Eating Contest held at the International House of Pancakes, 7006 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. The USC team lost out to the UCLA gluttons, however, by 11 pancakes: UCLA 259, USC 248.
YAF petitioning to end mandatory fees
A committee supported by the Young Americans for Freedom and the Free Trojan is circulating a petition proposing that the present $4.50 student activity fee be made voluntary, and that membership in the ASSC not be determined by payment of the fee.
To date YAF members and other students have secured 400 signatures. If 1,800 students sign the petition, the ASSC Council must then submit the measure to the students for approval.
The movement for voluntary fees began last year when YAF objected to the allocations of funds by the ASSC Executive Council. Specifically disagreeable was the allocation of money to the Black Students Union, Kennedy Action Corps and the Black Panther Breakfast Program, John McGuinness, YAF Qhairman, said.
MoGuinness compared this to the federal government giving money to the Democratic and Republican parties.
“These are special-interest political groups who don’t deserve one penny of student body money,” he said.
YAF does not want to be the only group associated with the Committee for Voluntary Student Fees.
“This is not a philosophical issue—it’s basically just a matter of the individual’s freedom of choice,” said McGuinness.
Aside from misuse of funds, he gave another reason for supporting the movement. “Most people around here aren’t rich, and especially going to USC, you want to cut comers.”
The committee has not received any opposition from other campus organizations, but they expect it will be forthcoming, especially from those involved in student government. Even so, McGuinness says, “We think we’re going to make it.”