Daily ® Trojan
University of Southern California
Volume LXVII, No 52	*-os An9eles' California	Thursday, December 5, 1974
Hubbard predicts 9 to 11%
tuition increase next fall
BY MARJIE LAMBERT
Assistant Editor
President John R. Hubbard told the President's Advisory Council Wednesday that he predicted tuition would be increased by nine to 11% next year.
The Budget and Finance Committee ofthe Board ofTrustees has postponed a decision on raising tuition until its January meeting when there will hopefully be better economic indicators and a better idea of how many students are applying to the university.
However, Hubbard speculated that the raise would fall within that range, which includes the 10% figure recommended in a minority report by the student members of the Resource Management and Planning Committee.
A tuition hike in that range would mean an increase of between $260 and $320 per year.
The majority report of that committee, which was also recommended by the council asked that tuition be raised at the same rate as the cost of living. up to 13%. The cost of living for Los Angeles has already exceeded 11% this year.
Some members of the council commented that an excellent presentation of the minority re-
port by student members was probably largely responsible for the possible lower increase.
Hubbard also speculated that the increase in the pool for faculty and stafTsalaries would be in the range of 10 to 13%.
Faculty, staff and student caucuses will be consulted for opinions on how a pool in that amount should be allocated. The resource committee will then make a recommendation to the council based on those opinions.
A special meeting of the council will be held in early or mid-January to vote on that recommendation.
The counci/ had been told that a 13% increase in tuition would only provide funds for approximately an 11% increase in the compensation pool.
When asked how the difference would be made up with the lower tuition increase. Hubbard would only say that tuition may not be the only source of funds.
He added that the trustees were not inclined to link tuition to a rise in the cost of living.
Hubbard also announced that the trustees had approved a salary increase for teaching assistants retroactive to Nov. 1 amounting to approximately 6^2%. He said that if the total amount were distributed over the entire academic vear in-
Trustees approve 5% increase in TA pay
The proposal for a 5% pay increase for teaching assistants was approved Wednesday at the meeting of the Board of Trustees.
A total of $90,000 in raises will now be split among approximately 325 TAs for this academic year. Because the raises are retroactive to September, monthly TA salaries will be increased slightly more than 5% for the ra-mainder of the school year to meet the total figure.
The recommendation for the increase was sent to the board by the President's Advisory Council after TAs complained when they were not included in the staff salary increases for this year. It has been five years since the last TA salary increase.
A decision on the PAC recommendation for a 13% tuition increase was delayed by the board until its January meeting. The board’s Finance and Budget Committee wants more time to consider the proposal. The proposal is expected to be approved.
A decision on the proposal for a change in the academic calendar was postponed until March. The board's Academic Affairs Committee and Finance and Budget Committee want to scrutinize the second semester's enrollment pattern before making a decision on the issue.
PAC's recommendation on the calendar issue was for an early semester program whereby first semester finals would end before Christmas.
In this proposal the second
semester would begin around January 20 or on the Monday nearest to the beginning of the junior college finals period.
Studies on early semester calendars at other colleges have shown a 2% average increase in the usual amount of student attrition between semesters.
Such an increase in attrition at USC would mean a loss of approximately $500,000 in tuition revenues.
stead of only from November, it would be approximately a 5% raise, as recommended by the council.
Hubbard said that unless there was inordinate attrition in the spring semester, the university would end the year with a modest surplus.
The council also voted to change two bylaws affecting next week’s student elections. On-campus balloting will be allowed. and there will be no minimum voting requirement.
However, the number of votes received by each candidate will be required to be published, with method of publication to be determined later.
Some student members criticized the change from required ballot by mail because oncampus balloting has historically resulted in lower student participation.
The council also amended the bylaws to allow proxy votes only if the proxy were given to another councilor and each councilor could only have one proxy vote.
The Commission on Elections and Credentials and the Executive Committee of the council had previously recommended against proxy votes on grounds that it would lessen continuity and responsibility to constituents.
However, a councilor said that meeting times were inconvenient for some councilors.
The decision to allow proxy votes to be given to other councilors was a compromise.
Connie Seinfeld, chairman of the Student Caucus, called an informal meeting of caucus members present gave her a vote of future caucus meetings.
At that time, the caucus members present gave her a vote of confidence.
A few caucus members said later that while they felt the caucus still had problems that needed solving, they were not happy with attacks on Seinfeld made by the Daily Trojan, and this was the major factor in the vote.
RALPH NADER
DT photo by Michael Sedano
Nader urges students to become involved
BY LARRY TUCK
Staff Writer
If California’s students would take the responsibility to work to solve political and consumer problems, they could become a dominant force in the state, Ralph Nader said Wednesday.
Nader urged a near-capacitv audience in Bovard Auditorium to use the time and resources available to them as students to investigate and fight against the abuse of power by large corporations and government agencies.
He said that the first step in this effort would have to be a reform of the educational system.
“Students spend hundreds of thousands of hours every week passively responding to an educational system that is a mirror image ofthe commercial system rather than a tool for meeting the needs of society,” he said.
He said, for instance, that engineering students are trained to defend companies who produce pollution, rather than to
ONLY 20 DAYS—Christmas decorations were on sale in stores before Halloween, trees started appearing before Thanksgiving and now Christmas presents are being sold at the Crafts fair in Alumni Park. The fair
included everything from airbrushed shirts to plants. It will continue through today. DT photo by Paula Daniels.
fight the problem.
Law schools have also been guilty of ignoring problems, he charged.
“We have been the victims of generations of lawyers who have not been taught to ask the really tough questions about society.” he said.
Instead, lawyers have been taught to work for the clients who can pay them the most: the big corporations rather than consumers, landlords rather than tenants, creditors rather than debtors.
If students join together, he said, they can convince administrators to let them use their time and effort to correct social problems. instead of being tools of commercial interests.
Nader said that students are particularly qualified to do this kind of work because not only are their imagination and idealism at a peak, but they have the time and freedom to engage in radical thinking.
Older people, he said, are caught in a crossfire between their obligations to their jobs and their own consciences.
Asa result, they often abandon their value systems in favor of security and comfort, becoming essentially what he termed “well-paid serfs.”
As a result, polluters, companies that manufacture unsafe products, those who charge unrealistic prices for inferior goods and others who profit at the expense of society are allowed to go unpunished.
The giant corporations have reached the peak of their power Nader said. He predicted tf ’ their control over public ; titudes and the government u decline In the future.
He said that the decline oft: < power of big business has ready begun. The Ford a i ministration has moved to bre k up monopolies and Congress u showing signs of greater inde pendence from both the presidency and the influence of the business community.
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