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Group vote censures
USG leadership role
By MITCH CHERNOFF
Collegian Senior Reporter
Students meeting last night to discuss
methods to fight the tuition hike voted
to censure Undergraduate Student
Government leadership for “not
engaging in significant efforts to
prevent the budget cuts and the tuition
hike.”
The resolution, introduced by
defeated USG vice presidential can
didate Gary Potter, was passed 27 to 7.
It charged, “The USG leadership is
guilty of malfeasance and nonfeasance
and should be censured by this body.”
Defeated USG presidential candidate
George Cernusca, who supported the
resolution, said the censure indicates
the group’s distaste for USG President
Mark Jinks and USG’s role at the
meeting. It does not restrict the ac
tivities of Jinks or other USG leaders.
The session, open to all University
community members, also approved a
resolution calling for the creation of an
ad hoc committee “to determine the
feasibility of bringing suit against the
University to fight the tuition hike.”
Cernusca, who sponsored this
resolution, said the committee is open
to all interested persons. He said, “I see
a need forthis committee because the
present USG administration has been in
office a month now and has done
nothing.”
Jinks replied, “The political ideology
of the ad hoc committee does not
represent students of this University
and what they want. The USG elections
gave students a chance to say what
tactics they want.”
An unidentified student said, “A very
small minority of students are here. All
students are not being represented. We
should go by the election results.”
Despite these objections, the resolution
passed 28 to 4.
Another resolution calling for a
University-wide strike of students,
teachers and campus workers easily
passed. Along with this, a bill was
Teamsters reject contract
Members of the Teamster’s Union
Local 8 last night voted down the
University’s contract submitted for
the next fiscal year. The contract
would affect University Park and
branch campus workers.
A union member gave The Daily
Collegian the results, which were
verified by the Teamster’s office. At
the University Park campus
meeting 1,136 attended of whom
1,127 voted against the proposed
contract and 9 voted in favor. At
branch campus meetings votes
totaled 178 against and none in
favor.
Teamster’s officials last night
would not comment on this vote’s
implicationsand on the union’s next
SSSiSSWiiSS
In comp sci department
Appointment may not close rift
By ANDY ISAACS
Collegian Staff Writer
The appointment of a new acting
chairman to the computer science
department is an attempt to heal a rift
between theory- and applications
oriented faculty. Whether it will reverse
the department's trend toward more
theoretical instruction is open to
question.
Thomas Wartik, dean of the College of
Science, Friday said he will replace
present department head Edward G.
Coffman with someone, as yet unnamed,
from outside the department. Coffman,
whose interests lie in research and
theory, had been accused of riding
roughshod over the department’s job
training programs.
However, many professors and
graduate students contacted said the
department was split between theorists
News analysis
and applied people long before Coffman
became chairman and course content
reflected a trend toward the theoretical
for several years.
Assured their names would not be
printed, professors and graduate
students voiced their feelings on course
content and the department’s mood.
One graduate student said he felt the
change in course content was
“evolutionary, not revolutionary.” He
said as the computer science depart
ment expanded and attracted more
competent students undergraduate
courses began to include more and more
material previously taught at the
graduate level.
Collegian
“ V 01.73, No. 156 10 pages
University ParK Pennsylvania
passed calling “for the formation of a
Central Strike Committee representa
tive of all campus student, faculty
and workers’ organizations to im
plement and direct such action.”
Asked how many students would
support a strike, Jim Cory, president of
the Young Socialists and defeated USG
presidential candidate, said, “28,000
would support a strike if it’s proposed
within a certain framework. What we
want is militant action in defense of our
right for an education.
“The leadership of the students up
here is spineless, it has no backbone, it
refuses to fight. If you’re going to
propose a strong league to people, plan
it out and show them how it’s going to
work, then they’ll support it,” Cory
said.
USG Senator Don Gingrich proposed
an amended resolution stating that
fighting budget cuts through a strike is
self-defeating. He said, “A strike is
likely to get people pissed-off at us. If
we want real power we’ve got to get into
the electoral system and make it work
for us.”
Cory termed the amendment, which
was defeated, “reactionary."
Another YS-sponsored resolution
calling for faculty unionization was
passed by the group because “faculty
members will be helpless before planned
layoffs if they remain unorganized.”
USG Senator John Burns objected to
the resolution, saying, “No faculty
members are here. This group cannot
speak for faculty workers.”
Defeated USG vice presidential
candidate and YS member Joe
Marinucci commented, “The teachers
are being attacked along with the
workers and the youth. We are being
attacked together, we must fight
together.”
The meeting adjourned after four
hours but scheduled another session for
7:30 p.m. May 31 in the HUB Ballroom.
A union member said the vote was
not a strike vote but one to submit
the contract to the University for re
negotiation.
Contract particulars he cited
include a 5.5 per cent maximum
increase in campus workers’ wages
only if the University receives the
full $6.1 million requested ap
propriation increase. With less
appropriations to the University
workers wages also would be
proportionately less, he said.
The new contract, which was read
in portion to those at the meeting, is
basically the same as the old con
tract which expires May 31, the
union member said.
With much material already covered
it was an open question what new
material would compose graduate
courses, the student said. Even before
Coffman arrived many 500-level courses
were theoretical, making it difficult for
some master’s degree candidates to get
enough “hands-on” vocational training,
he added.
Many students who took Computer
Science 511, systems programming, said
Coffman made the course much more
theoretical. “Maybe I can’t say there
has been a great shift in subject matter
but there has been a shift in the spirit,”
one student commented.
Another said, “Dr. Coffman has
turned 511 into essentially a
mathematical models course.” He
called it “a great introduction to
research” but said the course is required
not only for Ph. D. candidates but also in
the terminal master’s program designed
to job train graduates.
“The course should be split into two
courses,” the student added.
Faculty members noticing a change
in department emphasis saw it largely
as a shift in personnel, suggesting the
.change has fed on itself.
Two faculty members who have ac
cepted appointments elsewhere said
their decisions were not political. One
said he is leaving because he wants to
teach and feels teaching is “no longer a
viable commodity” at the University.
“Adequate teaching will get you by,
adequate research w ill not,” he said,
referring to the department’s current
priorities.
He also said although there was a split
in the department for years most
members remained neutral until
January.
University. jrK if*
published by Students of The Pennsylvania State University
Strike!!!
Young Socialists President Jim Cory was applauded several
times while calling for a University-wide strike to fight the
tuition hike. Parliamentarian Kevin Smith (left) kept order
at the meeting.
Nixon concedes
but says actions
WASHINGTON (AP) President
Nixon yesterday conceded there were
major efforts to cover up the Watergate
scandal. But he said any insinuations
that he was involved misinterpret his
actions.
In a statement, Nixon said reports
about him which purport to implicate
him in the' Watergate bugging and
subsequent attempted cover-up are
erroneous.
Nixon said any actions he took reflect
a legitimate concern on his part with
national security. He also said again he
will not resign.
Shortly before Nixon’s statement was
issued, Atty. Gen.-designate Elliot
Richardson told the Senate Judiciary
Committee that Nixon was made aware
in late .March of the break-in at the Los
Angeles office of a psychiatrist treating
Pentagon papers defendant Daniel
Ellsberg.
Testifying at the unexpected
Another instructor who also plans to
leave said he thinks a large faculty
exodus from the department will be the
dispute’s most damaging result.
The instructor said courses such as
Computer Science 404, 411 and 420,
required of all computer science majors,
and 468, required of all graduate
students in the department, are in
terrelated and depend on teaching
continuity. This could be destroyed if
many instructors leave, he added.
Graduate students, some complaining
a few courses no longer resemble their
catalogue descriptions, said they
already have felt the change in staff. "
Several students said the most recent
doctoral candidacy examination
reflected changes in courses they had
taken earlier. Their course work and
reading list were not adequate
preparation for the exam, they noted.
With the shift in personnel and the
“spirit” that both teachers and students
say tells the most about the department,
Penn State computer science has
become polarized between two camps in
past months.
“If someone sneezes it can be con
sidered political,” one professor said.
This is why Wartik said he is bringing in
a chairman from another department.
Weather
Cloudy, damp and mild with rainy
periods through early tomorrow morn
ing. High today 68, low tonight 60.
Remaining mostly cloudy tomorrow,
becoming breezy with chance of a light
shower, high 68.
Photos by Randy J. Woodbury
reopening of his confirmation hearings,
Richardson told senators that former
presidential counsel John Dean 111
“informed the President, or so I’ve
heard, that there had been a break-in” at
the psychiatrist’s office.
Richardson added, however, that this
appeared to mean that “the President
was made aware of the Ellsberg break
in but not who was involved or what
came of it.”
It was almost a month later, on April
27, that the judge in the Pentagon papers
case announced that the Justice
Department had been informed that
Watergate conspirators E. Howard Hunt
and G. Gordon Liddy had been involved
in the burglary.
Clemency offer admitted
WASHINGTON (AP) Former White
House aide John C. Caulfield yesterday
swore he relayed offers of executive
clemency to Watergate burglar James
W. McCord Jr. but doesn’t know whether
President Nixon “personally had en
dorsed this offer.”
Caulfield said he was assigned to
contact McCord by John W. Dean 111,
who was then White House counsel. He
said he asked, "Do you want me to tell
him it comes from the President?
“He said words to the effect, ‘No, don’t
do that, say that it comes from way up at
the t0p...”
McCord, who finished two days of
questioning yesterday, said when he
received the offers from Caulfield in
January, he assumed they came from
the President, the only one who can
grant executive clemency.
Caulfield said, “I specifically never
spoke to the President of the United
States and have no knowledge of my own
as to whether he personally had en
dorsed this offer or indeed whether
anyone had ever discussed it with him.”
McCord said he was told by Caulfield
that Nixon knew of the clemency offer,
would be told his response and that he
could expect a personal call from the
President after their meeting.
Caulfield’s statement differed from
McCord’s in two major respects.
McCord testified Caulfield told him the
President was aware of the executive
elemency offer and would receive a
report about it.
Caulfield said he had no knowledge
that the President knew the offer was
being made. -
McCord also said he placed calls to
two embassies in an effort to have the
government disclose that his con
versations were overheard on wiretaps.
He identified the embassies as those of
Chile and Israel. He said he knew such
evidence would not have his case
dismissed but would test the truthfulness
of the government which said there were
no taps.
cover-up efforts
misinterpreted
In his statement Nixon said that when
he heard about the Watergate break-in
he initially thought “there was a
possibility of CIA involvement in some
way.”
Nixon acknowledged that he ordered
his two top aides, H. R. Haldeman and
John D. Ehrlichman, “to insure that the
investigation of the break-in not expose
an unrelated covert operation of the CIA
or the activities of the White House
Investigations Unit.”
That unit, which came to be known as
the “Plumbers,” was organized to plug
security leaks in the White House.
Two of the Plumbers, Liddy and Hunt,
have since been convicted in the
Watergate affair and the two other
But Caulfield testified McCord told
him the scheme was a way to save the
White House embarrassment over
Watergate. As the committee recessed
for a vote on the Senate floor, McCord’s
attorney, Bernard Fensterwald, said his
client would not volunteer answers to
questions on the differences.
Caulfield said, “I viewed my role
simply as one of a messenger,” and
Astronauts conduct
final Skylab practice
CAPE KENNEDY, Fla. (AP)
Astronauts yesterday conducted a final
rehearsal of the repair job which must
work if America’s Skylab is to be saved.
Workers meanwhile prepared for
countdown toward a Friday launch of
the first space salvage mission.
Working underwater in a tank at the
Marshall Space Flight Center near
Huntsville, Ala., Skylab 1 astronauts
Charles Conrad Jr. and Dr. Joseph P.
Kerwin practiced erecting a - sun shield
designed to cool off the overheated space
station.
The third crewmen, Paul J. Weitz,
planned an underwater rehearsal of a
possible space-walking attempt to un
jam and deploy a solar power panel
which failed on the space station.
Full-scale mockups of the Skylab
space station and the astronauts’ Apollo
ship are submerged in the huge tank,
where the astronauts get sensations
similar to working in weightlessness.
Workers at Cape Kennedy were
preparing to start at 5:30 a.m. EDT
tomorrow the countdown toward launch
of the astronauts at 9 a.m. Friday.
If all goes as planned, Conrad, Kerwin
and Weitz will be drilled into orbit
aboard an Apollo command module
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* '**£&*'
members of the group have resigned
their administration posts.
“It was certainly not my intent, nor
my wish, that the investigation of the
Watergate break-in or of related acts be
impeded m any way,” Nixon said.
The Senate judiciary Committee had
been expected to approve Richardson’s
nomination yesterday and the reopening
of the hearings was a surprise.
The holdup in Richardson's con
firmation delayed the official start of
work by Archibald Cox. the Harvard law
professor tabbed by Richardson to be the
special Watergate prosecutor.
Cox asked that theregular prosecutors
working on the federal government’s
Watergate case meet with him today.
added he actively resisted the role
McCord earlier said he was so angered
by “a ruthless attempt” by the White
House to blame the CIA for the
Watergate burglary that he sent a letter
promising “Every tree in the forest will
fall. It will be a scorched desert.”
Caulfield acknowledged receiving the
letter.
stuffed with tools and equipment
designed to rescue the crippled $294
million Skylab from failure.
Skylab Deputy Program Director,
John H. Disher, yesterday said the
astronauts will carry hardware for two
and perhaps three alternate methods of
shading the sun-heated orbiting
laboratory.
Engineers at the far-flung nerve
centers of the nation’s space technology
have been working feverishly to design,
build and test sun shade equipment.
Disher said at least three models will
arrive at Cape Kennedy by this af
ternoon.
Disher said chances are good for a
Friday launch.
“We’re very hopeful we can keep that
date, and at the moment there appears
to be no reason we can’t,” he said.
Disher said the prime design for the
sun shade is a spring-deployed device
similar to a beach umbrella. Tentative
plans call for the astronauts to deploy
the umbrella through an airlock of the
space station.
This would not require a space walk.
The effort is scheduled for Saturday,
during the second day of the salvage
mission.