Daily m3 Trojan
Vol. LXVI, No. 89
University of Southern California
__Los Angeles, California
Wednesday, March 13, 1974
Small response feared in advisory council vote
BY ELLEN NORMAN
Staff Writer
A coming election of representatives to the President's Advisory Council will not be binding unless 30r< ofthe eligible voters return their ballots—and one administrator is afraid this might not be possible.
Voting will be handled by mail, and Paul Moore, director of student activities, said he is concerned that not enough ballots will be returned by the deadline.
The ballots for 13 undergraduate seats—12 from the College of Letters. Arts, and Sciences and one from the School of Business—will be mailed out March 22 and must be returned by April 2.
“Students just don’t know what’s going on." Moore said. “If
you don’t know what you're voting for. why should you vote?”
Moore said that a connection must be made to bridge the gap resulting from students who do not understand the functions of the membership in the council.
In addition to 33 students on the council. 62 faculty members.
23	deans and 6 full-time staff members will also be elected to serve as liaisons between student groups and President John R. Hubbard.
Council members will also decide on nominations of student members to university committees and to the Student Programming Board.
John Griffith, executive secretary of the President’s Advisory Council, said that he hopes that the new mailing system will encourage more students to vote
Festival continues; moog performance set for today
The Los Angeles Electronic Quartet will give a moog synthesizer performance today at noon on the Student Activities Center patio. The performance w ill begin the second day of activities for the Festival of the Arts.
Following the concert, at 1 p.m.. the members of the group will take part in a discussion entitled “The Magic Music Machine.”
At 2 p.m. Peter Brow n. British rock musician and lyric writer for The Cream, w ill give a poetry reading. It will be held in Student Activities Center 206.
Paul Vangelisti. a poet, accompanied by a pianist, a flutist and a dancer, will give a multi-media poetry performance at the Visual Communications Space in Watt Hall from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Vangelisti will participate in an anti-lecture about multi-media performances after the entertainment.
An illustrated lecture and performance will be given by Richard Bunger in Edison Auditorium. Hoffman Hall from 7:30 to 10 tonight. “Non-music and Aleatoric Composition” including “The Perilous Night” will be presented. A symposium, “Non-Music,” will follow.
The events for Thursday will begin at noon in Bovard Auditorium. Grant Beglarian. dean ofthe School of Performing Arts, will introduce Susan Sontag. the festival keynote lecturer, an author and filmmaker, will speak on "The Contemporary Revolution in the Performing Arts.”
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in the election.
“For a student election. 30°/( is a high turnout” he said. “Elections held on campus usually receive only a 10^r turnout.”
The last election conducted by mail in the fall of 1972. however, received a fairly large response.
The result of that election was a 5 to 1 vote in favor of reforming the student government. A total of 19.000 ballots were sent out and 6.000 were returned.
If the required 307r of voters do not return their ballots, the commission on credentials and elections, headed by Norman Lane, associate professor of law7, will then reconduct nominations and elections to fill the open positions.
Leonard R. Wines, executive director of university relations, said that the ballots will be sent to the student’s address that is listed with the university.
“Our intent is to send the ballot to the place where the student would normally get his mail,” Wines said.
The addresses, however, are programmed through a computer. This could possibly create problems since representation is determined by individual constituencies, Wines said.
Wines cited an example of a student living in an apartment near 28th Street to illustrate his point.
“The computer may not be able to determine if the student lives in a fraternity or an apartment,” Wines said. “If this be the case, the student may choose which constituency he w ishes to identify himself with.”
Also, if the address the university has for a student is not his campus address, the stringent election deadline will not leave enough time for the student to receive his ballot.
Student Lobby: a new force in U.S. politics?
'First of two articles.)
Can students continue to exert meaningful influence in the determination of national policies?
The third annual conference of the National Student Lobby in Washington. D C., during late February, showed that they could—but on different issues from those of the 1960s. and in a different manner.
"All three of the great changes in the nation during the 1960s—in civil rights, the environment, and the war in Indochina—were brought about only after persuasion by students,” Rep. Paul N. McCloskey 'D-Calif.) told the opening session.
But he said that students cannot sit out the 1970s in apathy, despair, or self-congratulation.
“You are numerous and cohesive and can exercise significant
political power if you have the leadership and organizational ability,” McCloskey said.
Willis Edwards, chairman of the lobby’s board of directors, set the theme of the conference as he addressed the 900 delegates.
“Despite Gordon Strachan’s much-echoed advice that young people should stay away from Washington, we did not,” he said.
“We did not and we will not —we will not because we know that what happens here in Washington, on Capitol Hill and the White House affects our lives as students and affects it daily...
“When the American people do not understand the crisis in education, we as students tell them— and that is why we are here.”
(Edwards, a former student body president at California
State University. Los Angeles, is1 a student in public administration here. He works in the Student Services Center and is a city commissioner for social services.)
The lobby’s major concerns at this conference were all economic-related. Three specifically affected students: two, all young people.
They wrere as follows:
•Federally insured loans. The abolition of the financial means test was sought for students from families with less than $20,000 in adjusted income.
The goal was to increase the availability of insured loans at l°7c interest to students from middle-income families, for w'hom loans w'ere increasingly harder to obtain because ofthe means test.
«Work-study program. An increase in funds for the program during the 1975-76 academic year, up to the authorized level of $420 million, was sought.
The level of funding has been $270.2 million nationally since the 1972-73 academic year. With more students and more institu-
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STRANGE BEDFELLOWS—These two lobsters are pets of Hudhail Al-Amir, a test supervisor at the Testing Bureau. Al-Amir caught the two friendly creatures while scuba diving at San Nicholas Island, about 65 miles from Los Angeles. They weigh 1 2Vi and 9V2 pounds. DT photo by Gehrig Ikeda.
Staff role on council hit, called inadequate
BY SARAH HECK
Assistant City Editor
Dissatisfaction with being afforded only three seats on the President’s Advisory Council to represent 6.000 staff employees has been expressed by the Staff and Administrative Women’s Caucus.
“We estimate that there are approximately 6.000 staff personnel at this university*. For that we get three seats on the council. We don’t feel that’s enough,” Kay Hamilton, cochairperson of the caucus, said.
“In addition, we’re upset that no one bothered to ask us, a recognized staff group, about how elections for these three seats should run.”
The staff, below the managerial positions, have no effective means of communication, Hamilton explained.
“The only way we have found out about this (being allotted seats on the council) is through the grapevine. One secretary told another about a memo she saw and so on," she said.
This same lack of communication among the staff resulted in the majority of staff members not participating in the election of a representative to the council, Hamilton added.
She explained that the results of a recent survey of the caucus members indicated that some 85% of the respondents hadn't participated in the council elections.
To make sure every staff person is involved Hamilton sees the need for involvement by already existing staff groups.
In response to this, Robert Kaplan, a member of the commission to run staff elections, said the commission was planning to meet with representatives from the women’s caucus and other staff groups in the near future. Kaplan is associate dean for the College of Continuing Education.
At a March 7 meeting of the Executive Committee of the President’s Advisory Council, staff elections were postponed. The new deadline for filling the council seats is May 6. This will give all members a chance to participate, Kaplan said.
Leonard R. Wines, executive director of university relations and a member of the Executive Committee, said that the basic purpose of the council is to advise President John R. Hubbard in academic matters. Since the staff is not involved in academics, they have low representation.
“The council is not an attempt to get a cross-section of the university,” Wmes added.
By allotting three seats on the council, the university is giving the staff, which includes food service employees, grounds-keepers and clerical help among others, a chance for representation. Wines explained.