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Volume LXXXVII, Number 15
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University of Southern California Friday, October 5, 1979
Student Senate seeks input in grievance hearings next week
By Aida Bustos
Staff Writer
The Student Senate will conduct grievance hearings next week to pinpoint the problems confronting students at the university.
The senate conducted similar hearings last year from which they said 75% of recommendations made by students were implemented this year.
Tim Walker, chairman of Student Affairs, said the senate hopes to triple the number of responses received last year. He said students turned in 1,000 forms detailing problem areas during the hearings last October.
“It is important for the Student Senate to know what the needs of the students are,” Walker said. “We just can’t represent students without their input. All we would do is create a student bureaucracy.”
Although this is the second year the hearings have
been conducted Walker said they should be held every year. He said students and the problems they face are always changing, and the hearings should be able to address current problems.
Students identified four key problem areas last year: registration, housing, financial aid and parking. The spnate formed four task forces to investigate problems identified by students and later to make specific recommendations to alleviate them.
Many of the grievances dealt with problems students had in registration. Walker said some of these problems stemmed from the “rolling admissions” policy the university'uses to admit students to the university throughout the year. He said the senate task force on registration, along with other agencies, succeeded in making May 1 the deadline for admission applications, eliminating the current rolling admissions procedures.	(Continued on page 2)
Admissions panel established
By Teresa Watanabe
Assistant City Editor
President John R. Hubbard has established a university admissions committee to help oversee the admissions process, recommend admissions policy and review admissions criteria.
The step is considered by many to be the first visible sign of administration response to recommendations made last May by the special task force on minority admissions, financial aid and staff-faculty appointment and tenure.
David Mars, chairman of the President’s Advisory Committee, said the admissions committee would probably define and specify its own responsibilities.
He has requested faculty, staff and student nominations to the 12-member committee from nine university groups: The Dean’s Council, Faculty Senate, Student Senate, Staff Caucus, El Centro Chicano, Community Services Center, Associated Black Students of Southern California-Black Student Union, MEChA and the University Neighborhood Relations Commission.
The committee, which will consist of a chairperson, four faculty members, four students, one dean and two staff members, should have “adequate minority faculty and student representation,” the
task force recommendation stated.
Mars said representatives from the admissions office would not be committee members but would play a supportive role, perhaps in a secretarial capacity.
Reaction was mostly positive, although it ranged from enthusiastic support to skepticism.
“On the face of it, it’s a move towards progress,” said Abel
Amaya, director of El Centro Chicano. “But the key to whether it’s progressive or not depends on who gets selected for the committee."
Robert Biller, dean of the School of Public Administration, hailed the committee as a “very positive development that will provide an opportunity for faculty, (Continued on page 2)
Students stage sit-in to ask that Berger resign
Ten students staged a sit-in the office of Jay Berger, director of admissions, Thursday. The students called for Berger’s resignation because of alleged discrimination in admissions policies.
Randall J. Craig, president of the Associated Black Students of Southern California — Black Student Union, said the five-minute demonstration was a success because “students are expressing their concern.”
The demonstration was a symbolic statement, Craig said.
"Unless we have a whole lot of answers and you (Berger) are not out (of office), we’re not going to give you peace,” was the intended message of the protest, Craig said.
Berger reiterated his innocence to charges of admissions prejudice and said the sit-in was “sort of like chanting for a civil rights causc that’s already won.”
A coalition between the ABSSC-BSU and MEChA, a Chicano student organization, first charged Berger with discriminatory admissions policies last spring.
The coalition distributed flyers two weeks ago accusing Berger of racial discrimination in admissions, unfair employment practices and making racial slurs.
LATE-NIGHT ATHLETICS — In the glare of a new lighting system, Cromwell Field provides an opportunity to those who cannot exercise during the dav. The track has become popular with many joggers since it was rebuilt late last spring.
Interns, residents place patient care above pay
By R. Jane Zachary
StafTWriter
In a contract negotiated this summer, interns and residents at USC-County Medical Center voluntarily gave up two percent of their proposed salary increase in an effort to improve patient care in county hospitals.
“The interns and residents agreed to accept a salary increase two percent less than most county employees received so that the money could be placed in a patient care fund,” said Pat Hancock, executive director of the Joint Council of Interns and Residents. The union represents county interns and residents.
The purpose of the fund is to purchase equipment which the county is unable to provide. “With the approximately $2 million in the patient care fund we plan to purchase everything from stretchers to EKG (Electrocardiogram) machines to infant warmers,” Hancock said.
Although the county pays plumbers more than it pays fourth-year residents who have had a total of eight years of medical training, salary increases are not the foremost concern of the council, according to Hancock.
“In the past we (the interns and residents) have gone on strike but not in an effort to get more money. Our main focus and what we are willing to strike about is patient care," Hancock said.
However, a spokesman for Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn had doubts concerning the benevolence of the union.
“Less hours, more money, patient care, they're all part of the same package. It’s hard to know the bottom line, what the strike is really about,” the spokesman said.
Because the approximately 1.400 county interns and residents perform a majority of the day to day patient care in the three county hospitals, including USC-County Medical Center, a strike by post-graduate physicians can be crippling. Hancock said.	(Continued on page 6)
Staff Photo by Peter C. Wtulich
ROCK AND ROLL — Shandi performed a wide range of tunes yesterday in the Student Committee on Popular Entertainment's first concert of the semester.