Daily ip Trojan
Volume LXVI, Number 58
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
Absenteeism of Members Concerns Council Leaders
Friday, December 14, 1973
BY BOB EVANS
Staff Writer
University Council leaders have expressed growingconcern for the poor attendance rate of their members this semester.
The overall attendance rate for this semester was 6(Ky according to an attendance chart prepared at the direction of the council's executive committee.
The Daily Trojan checked council records last week and reported a 55*7 absenteeism rate among the 19 student members.
BASED ON the council's chart, attendance rates this semester for other members are: staff 90%; deans and directors of academic units. 65%; and faculty, 62%.
The leaders are concerned about the attendance rates for the council, which, when created last spring, was heralded as President John R. Hubbard's “chief advisorv
body" and “the central instrument of university governance.”
The council is operating on a trial basis for one year, and its performance will be reviewed by the administration and the board of trustees next September. Its attendance record may be an important consideration in that review.
The council's leadership is trying to improve the attendance rates by encouraging the academic units to hold new elections to replace inactive members. But because some inactive members have not officially resigned, the question is whether or not their seats are actually vacant.
THREE STUDENT members have never attended a meeting since the council was established last spring, but because they have not resigned, they are still listed as council members.
Their schools—the Graduate School, the School of Business Administration, and the School of Architecture and Fine Arts—have had no effective student representation on the council, and the original members have not been replaced.
(Charles G. Mayo, dean of the Graduate School, said he will call for election of a new student representative to the council.)
The council presently has no provision for replacing or removing a member for absenteeism, but will consider at its meeting Monday a bylaws proposal providing that a member who misses three consecutive meetings will “be considered to have resigned.”
WHILE VACANT seats may now be filled by special elections in
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VETO MAY BE OVERRIDDEN
Chances Good for Aid Bill
BY PETER WONG
Managing Editor
The chances appear to be good for a congressional override of a possible presidential veto of a key bill that includes $1.5 billion for student financial aid in 1974-75.
President Nixon may veto the appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, and Health, Education and Welfare, approved by Congress last week, because it totals $32.9 billion—$1.3 billion more than the President requested.
On the other hand, both the House and the Senate passed the bill by far more than the required two-thirds majorities, both in the bill's original forms and in the final compromise version.
The Senate voted 85-3 to appove
the appropriations bill. The House passed it earlier. 371-33.
FURTHERMORE. Nixon would probably not want to risk his remaining	support	in
Congress—greatly reduced because of WTatergate and related scandals—to muster votes to sustain a veto if he is going to lose.
Both the House and the Senate recently overrode Nixon's veto of the act limiting the extent of presidential war powers.
However, of nine vetoes this year, six have been sustained, one overridden, and two have yet to be voted on.
HEWr officials fully expect a veto ofthis appropriations bill. Pamela H. WTalbom, director of the university’s Student Aid Office, has said.
THE HOUSE, where the bill originated, will be the key battleground.
But Nixon's former chief lieutenant in the House, Gerald R. Ford, can no longer help round up votes to sustain vetoes. Ford is now the Vice-President.
The National Student Lobby plans to join with the National Coalition for Full Funding of Education Programs and the Coalition on Human Needs and Budget Priorities to put pressure on Congress to override the expected veto.
The House Appropriations Committee held hearings on Labor-HEW requests in mid-March. On June 21. it sent to the floor a bill
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Art, Jewel Sale Featured in SAC
This horse and rider is one of the wood carvings from an African art collection on display in the Student Activities Center. The collection is part of $200,000 worth of art and jewel merchandise presented in the Art-Full Giving Exhibit and Sale.
The exhibit will continue today and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. The sales benefit the Student Activities Board, the artists, and the sponsoring firm. DT photo Bob Chavez.	j
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Nostalgia Overplayed In Films, Says Producer
FILM PRODUCER—Gary Kurtz, producer of American Graffiti, said a good story will fit anywhere. He said American Graffiti was purely amusement, a semiautobiography. DT photo by Michael Sedano.
BY FRANK O'DONNELL
Assistant SoCal Editor
Nostalgia as a film genre has been overplayed in recent months and really has little meaning, Gary Kurtz, the producer of American Graffiti, said Thursday.
“A good story will work no matter what its setting is.” Kurtz told a group of about 20 Urban Semester students. “What we call nostalgia is just movies about times that are gone, but that are recent enough to remember.” NOSTALGIA, he said, is nothing new. “We talk as though it’s a new genre, but Hollywood has always made nostalgia films.”
Kurtz feels that American Graffiti is not a nostalgia film. “It's really just an entertainment film. It's semi-autobiographical —everything in it is out of experiences that George (Lucas, the director) and I had.”
He also rejected categorizing American Graffiti as a message movie. “We tried to make a movie that would entertain. I think there’s a lot of comedy element in it.”
The movie is set in a small northern California town during Labor Day weekend, 1962. The story follows four teenagers through a night, vignetting their experiences with cruising, the local burger stand, gang fights and dating.
KURTZ ACKNOWLEDGED that the film makes a statement about its period. “In 1962 we were reflective. Later in the sixties, society became active—civil rights, the peace movement, acid rock.
“The time period worked for us because it was the end of an era. The next year. Kennedy was assassinated and the Beatles became big. After that we went into an incredible orgy of activity on all levels.”
Kurtz and Lucas decided on the title because they wanted an accurate portrait of the movie without over-intellectualizing.
“We couldn’t find any other name that described the movie without making it sound like a	B-picture—you	know, like
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