Hubbard not optimistic about budgetary surplus
BY MARJIE LAMBERT
Assistant Editor President John R. Hubbard cautioned Thursday against counting on a large budgetary surplus resulting from a heavy increase in enrollment.
i'm not at all confident we vvill end next June with any considerable surplus.” said Hjub-bard at a meeting of the President's Advisory Council.
Although enrollment was reported to be up by 1.600 students by William C. Himstreet. associate vice-president for student affairs, Hubbard said that the university won t know until some time in the spring what the fiscal situation will be.
He also expressed concern about mid-year dropouts. “I have no idea what effect the inflation factor will have on attrition,” he said.
- Hubbard said there was a crying need for the development of a contingency fund, and implied that any surplus would go into such a fund.
He added that the security of the university lies in a very substantial increase in the endowment. and said that his primary attention would be directed to the Centennial Campaign, a fund-raising drive with a goal of $265 million.
“I think we can reach that goal; maybe we can surpass it,” said Hubbard.
He also announced plans for the formation of a committee to advise him on policy formulation for the campaign.
Asked why a large endowment would solve USC’s financial difficulties when Harvard University—which has a $1.2 billion endowment as compared to USC’s $60 million—has announced budgetary problems, Hubbard said that the endowment would not solve all the university’s problems but would
serve as a backup.
“I'm thinking of it as an insurance policy,” he said, adding that the university didn't have any risk capital or financial safeguards against a catastrophe.
He said he wanted the university to get away from the agonizing budgetary process it goes through each year, which ends in tuition increases.
The council also heard the report of the Commission on University Calendar Reform, which recommended that the fall semester begin early with a month-long break at Christmas between semesters.
Under the proposed change, the fall semester would begin around Sept. 8 and run for 14 weeks, with finals ending about Dec. 23.
The spring semester would
begin about Jan. 20. or on the Monday closest to the day when the surrounding community colleges began their finals period so that transfer students wouldn’t have to attend classes at both schools concurrently.
The semester would last 14 to 15 weeks, with finals ending around mid-May. giving USC students a jump on the summer job market.
The major concerns expressed about the change, which would not go into effect until 1976-77. were the possible attrition in the month-long semester break and the effect on summer sessions and the College of Continuing Education.
A vote on the recommendation will be taken at the council’s Nov. 6 meeting.
John Schneider, personnel di-
(continued on page 13)
$500,000 given to
university
A press conference headed by Sen. John V. Tunney will be held Monday to announce the granting of more than $500,000 to the university for interdisciplinary courses.
The federal grant is from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and has the distinction of being one ofthe largest awards ever made for curriculum development at a private university.
The money will help bolster the development of the new interdisciplinary majors program, where students can basically design their own majors in accordance with their vocational goals.
Courses developed from the grant will link liberal arts education with the university’s professional schools, focusing on citizenship values in relation to professional pursuits.
Also scheduled to be present at the press conference are: President John R. Hubbard, Congresspersons Yvonne Braithwaite Burke and Augustus Hawkins, and Caroline Ahmanson, a member ofthe national council of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
SPEAKER—Wallace A. Smith, general manager of KUSC Radio, spoke to a Roundtable discussion group at the Faculty Center Thursday, stressing the fact that the public is responsible for the prevention of abuse in the media, not the government. DT photo by Mike Ito.
Public seen as way to end media abuse
DIDN T USE THE DOOR—Hole in the ceiling is the entrance used by burglar in the early morning theft Sunday at Hensley's Jewelers, 822 W. Jefferson Blvd. A gun and $1,000 in costume jewelry were taken. No suspects have been apprehended. DT photo by Mike Martinez.
BY KEN COOPER
The public has the ultimate burden of assuring the integrity of the news media, Wallace A. Smith, general manager of KUSC, said at a Roundtable discussion at the Faculty Center Thursday.
Smith said the electronic media’s ability to communicate instantaneously has effectively reduced the power the government can derive from public ignorance.
With their editorial freedom, Smith said, the media have now assumed that power, and it is the public, not the government, who must prevent its abuse.
“The public, at the local level and the national level, must insist that the people (media) who are making the decisions have
$1,000 in jewelry taken by ‘Santa Claus’ burqlar
If someone saw the hole in the ceiling of Hensley s Jewelers, he might think Santa Claus had lowered himself through an air vent rather than a chimney. But Santa Claus turned out to be a burglar one morning this week.
Robert Hensle> . tin* owner ofthe store at 822 W. Jefferson Blvd., said that at about 7:30 Sunday morning he received a call from Wells Fargo Security informing him that the burglar alarm had gone off in the store.
“I got here 25 minutes later and a black guy was in the store standing on one ofthe showcases shoving something up a hole.’ Hensley said.
Hensley also said that he had observed the man from his car and then drove around to the back of the store to look for a car but did not see one.
Apparently, he said, the man cut a hole in the roofand came into the apartment located above the store. He then cut a hole in the air vent and lowered himself into the store on an electric cord. A piece of plaster was knocked down from the ceiling and caused the alarm to go
off.
Hensley said that after he drove around the back he called the police, who responded immediately to his call. The private security officer who had phoned Hensley earlier showed up 45 minutes later.
The police followed the suspect across the Bank of America parking lot until he reached some apartments and jumped.a fence.
iiensley said that there were probably tw.» people in the store and one of them, a lookout, probably spotted him.
“They were witnout a doubt going to peel my safes.” he said.
Hensley said that only costume jewelry was stolen, probably not in excess of$l,000. His .38 caliber pistol was stolen from his desk drawer. He said the man was black, about 5’10” and about 30 years old. The police have no suspects.
some integrity,” he said. “There has to be a constant vigilance.”
Smith said the broadcast media is thriving in the 1970s. He said the current economic pinch has been a boon to radio and television, as well as motion pictures.
“Given these hard economic times, the media become much more important,” he said. “People are forced to stay closer to home, and this is a condition when the influence ofthe media grows in our society.
“The average American now spends W* hours a day in front of the television.”
Smith said this large amount of viewing time gives the broadcasters a tremendous influence in determining people’s needs and beliefs.
Just as an advertiser can create a need for his product, he said, so can news editors determine what is important to the public.
“There is no reason to believe that if it is possible to teach two-year-olds what their desires are, it is not possible to teach 60-year-olds what ideas need to be discussed.” said Smith.
“What the media chooses to report is what is going to affect our lives,” he said
The impact of electronic media on society has changed the basis on which we operate. Smith said. He equated power with the possession of informa tion.
“When you remove the possibility of having information the public does not have, you eliminate the power that secrecy provides,” he said.
The government, Smith said, has lost much of this power, but it has been transferred to the
media.
• The electronic media has the moral, sociological, and psychological responsibility to make decisions about what is done with, and broadcast in, the media,” he said.
Homecoming Issue
Daily ® Trojan
University of Southern California
Vol. LXVII, No. 29	Los Angeles, California	Friday, October 25, 1974