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Volume LXXXVIII, Number 58	University of Southern California	_Monday. May 5 1980
Staff photo by Michaal Yada
RECORDING SESSION — Student members of the rock group Barking Spydrz (left to right: Greg Farber, Bill Swaim, Stephen Mongulla) record a song in Bing Theatre studio. The group rehearses and records while gathering credits in its recording arts class.
Prof doubles as Reagan’s aide
"The April 14 issue of U.S. News & World Report speculated that I would take a cabinet post if Reagan was elected, but I wouldn't really consider anything like that very seriously, at least initially.
"I think two years is a reasonable maximum of time to serve. After two years, it seems to me, too many people become more concerned with keeping their job than doing a good job.
"I like California. I don't care for the Washington environment and the bureaucracy. It would be a sacrifice on my part (to stay in Washington for more than two years). But I think my wife, who is an attorney, looks forward to a couple of years in Washington.
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By Kathy McDonald
Staff Writer
What is it like to be a top policy adviser for a presidential candidate like Ronald Reagan?
"Busy and exciting," said William Van Geave, an international relations professor at the university and Reagan's head man on defense policy.
"I spend much of my time on the phone and in meetings," he said. "I've also been giving frequent testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee. Plus, I still have my work at the university."
Presently, Van Cleave teaches a 600-level advanced defense analysis seminar, but he said
he will resume teaching 400-and 500-level international relations courses in the fall. He is <’vector of the university's Defense and Strategic Studies program, and is an associate of the Center for the Study of the American Experience.
"I'm supposed to receive the university's annual teaching excellence award at the upcoming commencement, so I guess I haven't neglected my university duties too much," he said, laughing.
Van Cleave said that he is optimistic about Reagan’s presidential aspirations, and that he "essentially promised" he would stay on as a national security adviser for "a couple of years" if Reagan is elected.
Rent control initiative surrounded by conflict
By John Lamb
Staff Writer
Confusion, conflict, and misunderstanding surround Proposition 10, a proposed "rent control" initiative that will appear on the June 3 ballot.
"The basic problem is that the proposed law does not control rents, but instead restricts the ability of local government to pass rent control ordinances," said Bob Erlenbusch, a graduate student in political science at the university.
A major cause of confusion has been the title and summary of the initiative written by the state attorney general's office and printed at the top of the petitions for prospective signers to read.
The proposition, according to "No on 10" campaigners, would "eliminate rights and options communities have had traditionally."
They stated that California voters and local governments already have the right to enact local rent controls and other housing policies.
If the initiative is approved by the voters, a Los Angeles Times article said, "local government would be barred from enacting rent controls unless there is a referendum."
"Rent control shall be imposed only by a vote of the people of a local jurisdiction through enactment of an ordinance ..." according to the initiative. Existing rent control ordinances would expire after four years.
"Proposition 10 would outlaw rent control in California unless individual cities voted controls back in," Erlenbusch said.
Supporters of the initiative claim Proposition 10 would discourage inflationary rent increases because "annual rent increases that exceed the consumer price index would be disallowed."
The supporters also state "construction of apartments and mobile home parks in California has virtually stopped simply because longterm building investments can be turned into financial disasters by an excessive rent regulation or change in existing law."
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Maintenance workers will vote on unionization July 2
By Craig Gima
Staff Writer
University maintenance workers will vote on union representation July 2, according to an agreement reached after five hours of negotiation last week between Teamsters Union and university attorneys.
Teamsters Local No. 208 filed a petition for elections to the National Labor Relations Board two weeks ago. The labor board requires that 30% of the university employees sign petition cards stating approval for unionization, said Lou Gordon of the labor board.
About 400 physical plant employees on both the main and health sciences campuses will be affected. The voting will take place in Heritage Hall on the main campus and in the main lobby of the health sciences campus, said Kenneth Young, a Teamsters Union attorney.
If a majority of employees in the landscape and maintenance, utilities, groundskeepers, central receiving and new construction departments want unionization, the Teamsters will become the official bargaining agent for employees in those departments, Young said.
The union is seeking better job security and increased pay and welfare benefits, Young said. "It's my feeling that they (employees) are being abused."
Young said night custodians and groundsmen seem to be the most abused.
One grievance Young cited was the inadequacy of the university's grievance procedure because the university is the final arbitrator in deciding proper compensation and fair opportunity. In another grievance, an employee was frisked because he was soliciting union authorization cards.
Shortly after the election petition, Young filed complaints for six ex-employees with the labor board claiming they were harassed, threatened and followed because they were pro-union.
Arnold Shafer, director of the Physical Plant, said the charges were filed to make the union seem like a hero and to divert attention away from the real issues. "It's a common union tactic," he said. "We'll see what happens when the board finishes its investigation."
Shafer does not deny he is against unionization. "We certainly do try to discourage the union. We don't feel that they (employees) need the union."
Although he has encouraged workers to vote against unionization, Shafer said everything is "all above board."
He refuted Young's claims that employees were harassed. "If I ever hear about a supervisor doing that, that supervisor would be out of a job," he said.
"We have the right to persuade workers as we respect the right of the union to do the same.
"The university offers excellent job security. The average custodian has been with us close to 10 years."
Shafer admitted there were price inequities in salary but said the university is making progress. He said there is a special fund to resolve market inequities in pay.
There have been four unsuccessful attempts at unionization since 1976.
"Employees realize that the union can't really help them that much," Shafer said.
Classics chairman sees limited history study as demise of educational system
By Stephan Stem
Staff Writer
As chairman of the university's classics department, the mind of David Wiesen is expected to be riddled with the works of Cicero, Pliny and Lucretius, and it is. But his real concern is not focused on the past. He is a time-travel-ler who wants to use history as a building block for the present and the future, before, he says, it becomes too late.
Wiesen feels the study of history, particularly ancient history, has been intellectually exiled, cast to the comer of the classroom where it has gathered dust. This neglect, he believes, began two decades ago and has led to the demise of America's educational system.
A summa cum laude Harvard graduate with a Ph.D. in classics, Wiesen pegs the university as a prime example of education gone awry.
"This university has the potential of being a first-rate university, but something is blocking it," he said. "It's not a lack of resources in either the financial or intellectual areas, but rampant vocationalism — the attitude that the purpose of an education is to make people act as gatherers of wealth.
"Students today rush here with one obsession: 'Make me into an earnings individual.' It's like traveling through magnificent scepp;y with
one's eyes only on the gas station. Should this continue, it will mean the death of education."
It is difficult not to hear Wiesen. He has a stentorian voice and speaks through clenched teeth, crisply delivering each word. His accent is a combination of a New England twang and a Shakespearian oratory. Had he lived in the glory that once was Rome, his style of discourse alone would have captured the ears of the Senate.
Wiesen's words paint a picture of educational holocaust. Of illiteracy on the rise. Of dollar power replacing mind-power. But his educational pessimism is not based on any personal experiences gained when he was a student.
"When I went to school, there was a high expectation placed on a student's intellectual potential. It led to an atmosphere in which one felt that excellence was demanded of one. We were always conscious of our deficiencies. It was hard, it was frightening, but ultimately, it was good.
"Students today think that any knowledge not concerned with earnings is odious. But the whole notion of decision-making is based upon our knowledge of how men lived in the past, on a sense of continuity, with the idea that the
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