CAAB reviews Iranian Club status, freezes funds
By Susan Ritchie
Staff Writer
The Campus Activities Allocation Board unanimously voted to freeze the Iranian Students Club funds until it could be determined whether the group was a political organization or a cultural-educational club.
The decision came after the Iranian Students Club sponsored an on-campus rally Wednesday intended to inform American students of antishah sentiments. (Daily Trojan, Nov. 30).
CAAB funds are provided by the programing fee paid by students each semester. Only educational and cultural student groups are eligible for the funding.
"The potential conflict is whether or not the group is a social club as they claim. The
Iranian Students Club and Iranian Students Assn. held a rally ... to air their views about the shah of Iran. CAAB cannot fund any tvpe of political activities and as such, Stan Kiyota, board chairman, questioned whether or not the board-funded Iranian poet is going to speak about anything political," said the minutes from the board's Wednesday night meeting.
The rally, although sponsored by the Iranian Students Club, was not funded by the board.
The Iranian Students Club was allocated $510 to finance a speech by exiled Iranian poet, Saeed Soltonpour. This money had not yet been used.
The board will try to resolve the matter of the nature of the group at next Wednes-
day's meeting when the club is scheduled to appear for an unrelated matter, Kiyota said.
"We're going to ask them if they are a political organization or not," Kiyota said.
"It's never been done and I don't relish doing it."
"(It is an) unfair, irresponsible act on the part of CAAB," said Farrokh Abrishamkar, president of the club, when the Daily Trojan told him of the decision.
"We have gone through hell with CAAB. They have given us a terrible time," Abrishamkar said.
The Iranian Students Club asked for $13,000 this year and was allocated $510, Abrishamkar said.
The Iranian Students Club is strictly a cultural organization aimed to reach
American people and give them an objective view of Iranian culture, Abrishamkar said.
"The rally was strictly educational, politics and culture are inextricable," he said.
Other organizations on campus such as the Gay Student Union and MEChA also sometimes deal with political issues.
MEChA, a group that receives more than $5,000 in board funding works with the community as well as the university.
"We feel very much threatened (by the CAAB decision)," said a spokesman for MEChA.
"Any organization dealing with the community has to deal with politics. It (politics) affects your daily life," the spokesman said.
Student Senate may lobby in Washington
A Student Senate committee may send lobbying groups to Washington, D.C. to directly influence national issues, especially student-oriented legislation.
"USC students have been accused of being disinterested in national and community affairs," said Stan Lamport, vice-chairman of the environmental and external affairs committee of the Student Senate. "I believe this is mainly because up to now there's been no outlet through which students could become involved in government directlv. We re trying to create a situation now where students will have the chance to become involved."
The group being created is a campus chapter of the Coalition of Independent Universities, a national organization founded by students from the University of Pennsylvania and dealing primarily with the high tuition and financial aid problems of private colleges. While the university hopes to become very involved in this highly successful and influential organization, its chapter would be much broader in scope, Lamport said.
"We plan on working with the national chapter and state organizations on financial aid and other problems which would pertain directly to USC," he said. "We'd also like to eventually
send lobbyists to Washington, D C. and Sacramento to personally lobby for us.
"But there are other issues which affect USC students, namely consumer and community problems, and we'd like to get students involved in solving some of those, too."
The most important of these other issues the organization would deal with is described by Lamport as a community security plan, a cooperative effort between the university and the surrounding neighborhood to resolve the current security problem.
"Campus Security really doesn't have a lot of authority around here," he said. "We want to develop a program to integrate Campus Security, the Los Angeles Police Department, and the students and community members and improve the security of the* community, especially in the area north of school where the student population is increasing."
He added that such an effort could begin to resolve some of the misunderstandings he feels exists between the school and the community by bringing the two groups together to face a common issue. He also called the project a first step for the organization toward earning the respec-(continued on page 3)
trojan
Volume LXXV, Number 46
University of Southern California
Friday, December 1, 1978
FOOTBALL FRENZY — Emotions run high in anticipation of the intramural football championships. Six games will be played this Sunday to determine
ui photo by Doug Hoover
league winners. Teams will battle at the all-university advanced and beginner levels and in the interfraternity large and small house divisions.
NOTIFIED LATE
Students rush to pay fee bills
By Teresa Watanabe
Students crammed the Financial Services Building Thursday afternoon as they attempted to settle unpaid fee bills before the 5 p.m. deadline.
Delayed payment notices, which some students received as late as Thursday, apparently caused the last-minute rush.
Many students said their payment notices, dated Nov. 22 were not sent out until Saturday or Sunday and were received Wednesday or Thursday.
"I had time earlier this week to settle my fee bill," complained one student, "but I didn't receive my payment notice until today."
The notices stated that students had until Nov. 30 to settle their fee bills and had been previously contacted concerning the matter.
A spokesman for financial services, who wished to remain anonymous, said three notices were sent to students reminding them of their unpaid fee bills.
But one student said he had not received any notices prior to the final one.
Another student said she had received only one notice.
But the deadline for fee bill payment will be extended to December 8 to accommodate inconvenienced students, the spokesman said.
"No exceptions can be made after that because spring semester fee bills must begin to be processed," he said.
The spokesman said "extreme caution" on
the part of financial services was a cause of the delay.
"We compared lists of students with unpaid fee bills very carefully," he said. "We didn't want to harass students whom we knew’ had a financial aid problem or duplicate our efforts.
"Of the some 800 notices we sent out over Thanksgiving, maybe 100 of them were delayed," he said.
"This is supposedly the first time a problem like this has happened," said John Van Who-uten, a student in music.
The notice stated "If you are now a USC student and wish to remain one, please respond today."
Most students could not settle their fee bills because their grants and scholarships had not come through yet, they said.
They were told by financial services they could wait to pay their fee bill until the financial aid came through, they said.
Apparently, other exceptions included those students with partially paid fee bills.
However, everyone received the final payment notices.
Many students sat on the floor, some reading, others talking to friends while they waited. They did not appear overly upset, but rather resigned to the long wait in line.
Daniel Hamlin, executive director of financial operations, could not be reached for comment.
State cut may diminish medical center’s funds
Gov. Edmund G. Brown, Jr.'s 10% budget cut for the 1979-80 school year may diminish the already-reduced funds for USC-Los Angeles County Medical Center.
Brown announced the spending ceiling on state government in response to the passage of Proposition 13.
The medical center received an 8% budget cut this year as a result of Proposition 13.
The university's medical school uses the hospital for teaching and research.
California universities and colleges will be expected to come up with plans to cut their budgets by 10% also.
Brown also said that enrollment in the system had dropped 2.6% but the system's budget had risen by 44.4% over the cost of living.
A spokesman for Brown's Los Angeles office said the plan amounts to a cut between $65 and $75 million for the system's budget.
The spokesman for Brown's headquarters said the cuts wouldn't affect state scholarships because that part of the budget was minute.
John Curry, assistant to the executive vice-president, said he couldn't think of how the cuts could directly affect the university.
He said it could affect the level of state scholarship money allocated to the university, but because part of the money was actually federal funds, any effects would be unlikely.
Curry also said there may be a "second party" or "neighborhood" effect where the public universities and colleges' funding problems could affect the university.
For example, if the California university and college system increased tuition to help compensate for budget cuts, this would alter the educational market.
Raised tuition would make the costs more comparable between the schools, (although there would still be substantial differences in tuition costs), and could increase the university's enrollment.
Trustees of the state universities and colleges have already rejected the implementation of tuition as an alternative.