Student Legal Service advises caution when signing contracts
By Bob Conti
Staff Writer
Some things arc inevitable: death, taxes and door-to-door salesmen. While students can do little about the first two, they should be wary of sales pitches made by representatives of various companies.
Land Wayland, an attorney for Student Legal Services, said several students have come to his office for help in dealing with contracts they signed through door-to-door or direct sales.
Salesmen offer goods ranging from china and silver to insurance policies. While some companies offer legitimate services, others do not. Either way, Wayland said, students must be careful before signing any contract.
Inexperience in dealing with contracts and making purchases is why so many students have
problems, Wayland said.
The student is often making a major purchase decision for the first time.
However, many of the contracts students sign are legal and binding by law. All a student can do is go to a lawyer and see if there is any way of being released from the contract, Wayland said.
The dealer and consumer can usually reach an agreement but sometimes the two parties must go to court, he added.
If the student claims, and the judge agrees, that the salesman loxed the student into the sale, the judge may decide in the buyer’s favor.
However, the burden of proof is on the consumer and often it is his word against the sales company’s, Wayland said.
Wayland said because the stu-
dent claims he did not know terms of the contract is no reason for the judge to release him from a legitimate agreement. If the student is 18, the adult age in California, he can be held to the terms of the contract.
A sales approach is often hard to resist, Wayland said.
A salesman will often pretend to be another student or offer a product or service aimed at the college market.
There are various things a student can do to prevent being taken by direct-sales.
The best thing, Wayland said, is to comparison shop. One student bought about $1,000 worth of merchandise through a direct sales and later she realized she could purchase comparable goods at a department store for about half (Continued on page 9)
Staff Photo by Richard Levitt
TIMELESS OBSERVER — This statue high atop Bovard Tower nas witnessed the many charges here from the first years of formation and continuing on with the university’s 100th birthday.
Hydrocarbon Institute to open soon at university
After nearly two years of development, the nations’s only Hydrocarbon Institute will soon open at the university.
The institute is designed to develop substitutes for petroleum through coal or various renewable resources, said L.M. Stephenson, executive director of the institute.
Stephenson said the center was conceived by Gerald Segal, out-going chairman of the chemistry department, to attract top-name researchers to the university including Stephenson and George Olah, professor of chemistry. Both left Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio. Sidney Benson, professor of chemistry, left Stanford Research Institute.
While many schools are cutting their research budgets, the university is building and adding various programs, Stephenson said.
The S2-miliion building will be open in December. Stephenson said.
There are currently 50 students in the hydrocarbon program, ranging from post doctorates to undergraduates.
The institute, which conducts chemical research, hopes to combine with engineering. Stephenson said the two departments approach the same problem with different manners.
Such an exchange would broaden the research base, he said.
The institute will also sponsor exchanges with similar institutes in other countries.
The research the institute will conduct is “very timely,” Stephenson said. Several private industries have shown interest in the institute.
"We show them what we’re doing. The programs are attractive and industry gives us its support,” he said.
Several government agencies have also given financial support to the institute including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense and Department of Energy.
MORE MONEY NEEDED
Mideast Center issue revived
By Brandon Bailey
Assistant City Editor
The first steps in re-establishing a Mideast Center at the university will probably be formulated in another month. All previous donations to the independent Middle East Center Foundation have been returned.
After a formal university review and an informal inquiry conducted by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, the controversial concept of a center has been in limbo. Money and interest are the keys to reviving the idea, said John Marburger. dean of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
Members of a seven-person faculty advisory committee for the center will be selected by early November, Marburger said. The committee’s discussions will be used to determine the next step in reforming the center, he said.
Marburger was ordered by President John R Hubbard and the Board of Trustees to take responsibility for establishing the new center, at the suggestion of the President's Advisory' Council special committee on the Middle East Center.
The special committee’s recommendations were adopted by the board last June, after the committee spent six months examining the center as reportedly planned by Willard Beling, professor of international relations.
The “Middle East Center at the University of Southern California,” as originally named drew fire
from both within and outside the university last year because PAC and other university groups had not been consulted in planning the center.
It was feared that funding from outside sources through the independent Middle East Center foundation might interfere with university control over the center.
The special committee had recommended that all ties be dissolved between the university and the foundation directed by Beling. in order to protect the university's academic integrity.
The committee had also recommended that all funds raised by the foundation be turned over to the university for use by a new version of the center.
When the committee report was presented to the board. Hubbard suggested that all funds instead be returned to their donors. This suggestion was accepted by committee chairman, Carl Christol, professor of political science, and was the only amendment made to the committee report before it was unanimously approved by the board.
At the committee's suggestion, Hubbard ordered the center to be renamed the “University of Southern California Middle East Center.” The new name emphasizes the center's position within the university, Christol said.
Hubbard reported in August that all funds had been returned to the original donors. The SEC contacted the (Continued on page 8)
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Volume LXXXVII, Number 12 University of Southern California Tuesday, October 2, 1979
Staff Photo by Mark Sticht
LAB WORK — The Hydrocarbon Institute, Demceber, the institute, which conducts chemical designed to develop substitutes for petroleum research, hopes to combine with engineering. The through coal from various renewable resources, institute will also sponsor exchanges with similar will be the first in the nation. Scheduled to open in institutes in other countries.
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