ENDING THE DISCUSSION — Leonard Ratner, center, professor of law, interrupts a Chicano protest over potential law policies. He asks Richard Cruz, left, a lawyer, and David Gomez, a law student, to
end their meeting. About 40 of the original 125 students met on the grass outside the Law Center, where they decided to meet again at noon Saturday. DT photo by Tony Korody.
University of Southern California
VCX. LXJV
NO. 72
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1972
GRAD SCHOOLS CITE DANGERS
Pass-no pass not best
By MIKE REVZIN Staff Writer
Students planning on going to graduate or professional school should be very careful how they use the new pass-no pass system, said Doyce Nunis, professor of history, Thursday.
Nunis, who two years ago served on the committee that reformed the general education requirements, said that students “should keep in mind that, when their papers for admission are evaluated, their use of pass-no pass will be examined.”
Nunis said that a stigma may be associated with a student’s ability when he takes a pass-no pass course.
“If you use it for general education requirements, the obvious reason is clear—you’re doing it because you fear you might not get a good grade in the course,” said Nunis.
“If you used it for language,
they’ll say right away you have no language ability.
“In using it, you’re automatically creating a grade parallel.” He said it may be the same as admitting you would have received a C or D in the course.
Students in LAS may now take 24 units of pass-no pass courses, including 12 units in general education requirements.
The original objective of the pass-no pass system, said Nunis, “was to encourage students to take courses outside of their major and general education requirements in order to enrich their education.”
One way to override the potential stigma of a pass-no pass course, said Nunis, is to have the teacher write an evaluation of the student.
This is what some professional schools look for when a student has taken pass-no pass courses.
A spokesman for the School of
Medicine admissions office said that it requires an evaluation from the instructor of each course a student takes as pass-no pass. She added that personal evaluations can be more valuable than letter grades.
Dr. Edward White, chairman of the School of Dentistry’s admissions committee, said that an instructor’s evaluation is required from some, but not all, courses a student takes as pass-no pass.
The Center takes a slightly different approach. In the past, said Olive Anderson, admissions officer, a student’s grade point average was determined from his last 60 units of undergraduate work.
If some of these courses are taken without a letter grade, more emphasis will be placed on his Law School Admission Test score, and possibly his earlier undergraduate work, she said.
Festival to probe POP
What does POP mean today? What are the origins of the mass communications environment?
Next week’s ASSC Festival of the Arts will explore these and other questions in five days of lectures, concerts, films, theater and exhibits. Collectively called a Cultureprobe, the events are joined by the premise that today’s mass communications environment—television, film, pop music—has its roots in the 1950s, among the early TV shows, rock and roll music and Edsels.
High points of the festival will be a lecture on Friday evening by Marshall McLuhan, the festival’s opening lecture by Tom Wolfe, and a rock and roll concert by Little Richard on Thursday.
McLuhan, who helped discover and chronicle the pop phenomenon, has written that because of such things as transmission of television images from every part of the world, mass communication has turned our planet into a global village. He will deliver his first public lecture in the United States since 1970 in Bovard Auditorium at 8 p.m. Friday. Advance tickets are $1 for students and $2 for others at the Ticket Office, Student Union 200. Wolfe, one of the top practitioner of new journalism, will speak in Bovard Auditorium at noon Tuesday. He has written several books, including “Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.” Admission to Wolfe’s speech is free.
Little Richard will perform with Flash Cadillac
and the Continental Kids on Thursday at 8 p.m. in Bovard Auditorium. Student tickets are $2.50 and $2, others $4.50 and $4, and are available at the Ticket Office and through Ticketron.
Advance tickets for both McLuhan and Little Richard are going fast, said Jack Marquette, chairman of the festival.
William Kunstler, whose Great Issues Forum speech had been cancelled, is scheduled again. The well-known civil rights lawyer will speak on Wednesday at 1 p.m. in Bovard Auditorium.
An illustrated lecture on the subject of extraterrestrial visitors to the earth will be given by Stanton Friedman, nuclear physicist and UFO investigator, Thursday at noon in Bovard Auditorium. Admission will be 50 cents.
Captain Video (Larry Menkin) will give a presentation at noon Wednesday on the Student Activities Center patio.
The All Night Once In A Lifetime Atomic Movie Orgy, described as “a seven-hour collection of campy, kitschy celluloid thrills from the ’50s,” will be shown at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Bovard Auditorium.
A ferris wheel, higher than the Student Union, will be operating Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. A music recital, theater presentation and two Elvis Presley movies are set for Tuesday evening.
Law faculty rejects demand
By STAN KELTON
The Law Center faculty approved its proposed minority student admissions process without dissent at a faculty meeting Thursday night.
This came after the faculty voted 9-8 not to discuss its proposal at an open meeting and asked 15 Chicano students to leave after they presented a list of 10 demands.
One demand was that the Law Center’s proposal on minority admissions be rejected. In its place the Chicanos demanded that they be allowed to select 30 Chicanos for admission.
Lawyer Retained
The Chicano Law Students, a student organization, had retained a lawyer and plans to take legal action against the Law Center if the list of 10 demands is not met, it was revealed at a meeting held earlier Thursday.
Approximately 125 law students from the Law Center, UCLA and Loyola University met at the Law Center to discuss the 10-point plan they proposed in response to the Law Center’s proposal to change the admissions policy for minority students. The proposed change would eliminate the committee of three Chicanos and a faculty member who select Chicanos for admission, and replace it with a minority admissions committee.
“I wrote a letter to your esteemed university about a week and a half ago saying that I had been retained by four law students. We haven’t received any response and it is doubtful that they (the university) will comply with sections six and seven of the Civil Rights Act. If they don’t comply, we can be ready to go to court in three weeks,” said Miguel Garcia, the lawyer for four law students.
“USC doesn’t discriminate when it comes to hiring maintenance or cafeteria workers, or secretarial help.
“They are deceptive in their methods. They look good because they lump the blue-collar workers together with the white-collar workers. When it comes to selecting people for top positions they discriminate.” Other Schools Support
Law students from UCLA and Loyola spoke about the necessity of the local chapters of the statewide Chicano Law Students Association working together to accomplish the goals of the Chicano students.
“We are 100% behind USC law students and will go farther than just demonstrations to back them,” said one person who identified himself as a UCLA student.
“Meeting the legal needs of Chicanos cannot be done in the traditional manner. USC, UCLA, and other schools are trying to take the power from the students because they have very tradi-
tional concerns about their prestige among people in the business and legal professions,” said Leonard Torres, vice-chairman of the Chicano Law Students chapter at UCLA.
“Our goal is to get qualified people into the Chicano community to give legal assistance. We had seven graduates last year and they are all back in the barrio helping the people.”
Traditional Hit
Speaking about the problems common to USC and UCLA Chicano law students, Torres said, “What is involved here is going against tradition. Both schools are very traditional.”
Discussing the demand that 30 Chicano students be admitted to the Law Center, David Gomez, a law student, said the number of Chicanos admitted should be proportionate to their number in California’s population.
“We don’t want just anybody let in; we have standards to meet,” said Gomez.
First-Year Averages
Students at the Law Center must maintain an average of at least 70. One demand is that first-year Chicano students be allowed to have an average of 68, as long as the three-year average is a minimum of 70.
Gomez clarified this by saying, “We are not being inconsistent with point ten (not categorizing Chicanos for academic purposes) by asking for special favors, because coming to the law school is a new experience for Chicanos. They need this one-year period to become accustomed to the totally new environment.”
The Chicanos also demand that Daniel Chavez and Carmen Diaz, who were dismissed from the Law Center in September when their averages fell below 70%, be readmitted. “If the grade point average requirement had been lowered to 68, they would not have been dismissed. They have proven by their probationary year at an unaccredited law school that they are academically qualified to finish their law studies and graduate from the USC’s Law School,” Gomez said.
Another Chicano demand is that Associate Dean John Wiley be censured for his memo comparing the bar examination performances of Program for Economically Disadvantaged (PED) students with Anglo students. “We should have been more strong, and demanded his resignation,” Gomez said.
The final demand is that Chicanos not be considered a minority. They ask that since Chicanos are required to substantially perform on the same level as all other students, there shall be no categorization or designation of Chicanos as a special minority for academic purposes.
Guest regulations for women’s dorms set
Many male students apparently are not aware of the guidelines for visitation in the women’s dorms, Mary Tolman, the Women’s Complex manager, said Thursday.
The guidelines are as follows: Visitation hours are from 10:30 to 2 a.m. and are limited to Birnkrant Hall, EVK Hall, and the first two floors of College-University Hall.
Only women residents participating in the new visitation hours may sign men in.
In signing them in at the EVK, Birnkrant, or College-University desk, each woman must register her full name, her guest’s full name, her dorm and room number, the sign-in and sign-out time and leave her university photo ID card. The ID will be returned when she signs her guest out.
A participant cannot let others use her ID card.
Women must remain with their male guests at all times.