The daily collegian. (University Park, Pa.) 1940-current, December 19, 1974, Image 1

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    Calendar panel falls
By JANICE SELINGER
Collegian Staff Writer
Internal strife led the University
Calendar Commission last night to call a
45-day cooling -off period before making
any calendar recommendation to
University President John W. Oswald.
This 45-day moratorium will mean that
the commission will miss its Jan. 1
deadline. But, according to Chairman
Asa Berlin, it is too important a decision
to be taken lightly.
The commission, which previously
tavored the early semester system,
lecided that it had reached no real con
-ensuk
Therefore it will ask for a deadline ex
tension sb that each member can study
all possible calendar systems.
"The commission is not taking back its
support of the early semester system."
Berlin said, "but we are testing how
Leaders approve contract
UMW nears agreement
WASHINGTON (UPI) United Mine
Workers' executives last night approved
a wage-contract proposal covering 4,500
striking mine construction workers and
submitted the pact for a membership
ratification vote, probably by this
weekend, a federal mediation
spokesman said.
The spokesman for the Federal
Nlediation Service said theUMW
Bargaining Council had voted " virtually
unanimously" to recommend approval
of the wage contract agreement reached
last evening by UMW and coal company
negotiators.
ApproVal of the pact by rank-and-file
construction workers would also free
thousands of coal miners—who have
refused' to cross their picket lines at
many points around ' the nation—to
return to work for the first time since
early Npvember. A general settlement
of their wage-contract demands was
Congress passes Job bill
WASHINGTON (UPI) Congress
passed a $5.5 billion bill yesterday to
create :330,000 jobs to absorb some of the
six million persons unemployed in the
recession.
The measure, going far beyond
President Ford's $2.2 billion proposal for
a limited number of short-term public
service jobs, was sent to the White
House, where Ford was expected to
accept it.
In addition to creating jobs to be filled
by state, county and local agencies, the
bill would provide unemployment
benefits for 12 million jobs not currently
covered by state-federal unemployment
compensation programs. Most of these
invol domestic workers, farm hanlls
or employes of state and local govern
ments.
The emergency legislation was
enacted in a hurry following the an
nountment on Dec. 6 that unem
ployn ent in November had leaped to 6.5
per cent of the 90 million-member
civilian work fOrce—its highest level in
13 yeiirs.
That report did not reflect 'the full
extent of layoffs in the auto industry.
The House passed the bill by a vote, of
346 to 58.; Thy Senate acted a few hours
lateiiby Wire vote. •
Editof's note: Following is the second of a two-part story
exaruiping the student records controversy. Today, a report
on how the University handles the records of its students.
By NANCY MOYER
Collegian Staff Writer
"The University has a good record policy," said Raymond
MtirOhy, vice president for student affairs. "I, have no ap
prehnsions about students seeing their records."
Apprehensions or not, students now have the right to see
their records. If an institution refuses a student access to any
records directly related to him, it will be denied federal funds.
This is the law as put forth by the Buckley Amendment.
Records are kept throughout the University, but there are
some major areas students can cover in tracking down their
files:
S*lds•looks like just the building to house rows and rows of
filing cabinets brimming with material on students.
Warren Haffner, director of the division of admissions,
records and scheduling, has had students come to him won
dering whether distipline records will somehow fall into the
hands of potential employers.
r
B 't Shields isthe wrong place to go for anything other than
a tr nscript listing grades, courses and an academic profile.
The profile includes items such as home address,' Scholastic
Apt' ude Test scores and demographic data. By a student's
se year, all other material has been thrown out.
H ffner said every application for admission received from
a st deaf, whether he is accepted or not, is kept for three
yeas. This procedure is required by Pennsylvania law.
Ater . three years, those applications belonging to persons
who were not admitted are destroyed. The remaining ap
plications are microfilmed and kept indefinitely. Letters of
recdmmendation and other extraneous material found in the
folders are thrown out.
Haffner said that the Buckley Amendment has or - will have
very little effect on the way records are handled.
"Students have always had free access to the transcripts of
their permanent records," he , said. "They've also had the
Collegian
the
daily
close together we are on a concrete "The net advan sto be gained from
proposal." an early semester system compared with
But the rift in the commission seems the disadvantages of the potential
deeper than than. Robert K. Murray, modified term system do nut seem
professor of American history, said if the enough to offset the trauma involved in
early semester system is recommended making the change."
he will write a minority report sup The only net advantage that' Murray
porting the modified term. ' said he could see to the early semester
"The term system is a very viable, wo4l be if Oswald would show that it
legitimate calendar system. We have saves the University a significant
used it, it has functioned and we have amount of money.
turned out degrees," • Murray said. "With Arthur 0. Lewis, associate dean of the
all its defects, despite faculty grumbling, College of the Liberal Arts, said'that the
we have adjusted to it."
modified term system is not his ideal
"My conclusion is that the early
Proposal but that he would sign the
semester is one of the worst and not one •
minority report.
of the best," Murray said.
"The early semester would start , The commission also discussed
before Labor Day and no one likes that. It whether now is the time to change'calen
would end early in May and we have dars. According to Murray, this is a time
found it to be non-productive to out of indecision.
then," he explained. "Higher education is in a flux, the
reached weeks ago.
Union officials said they, expected the
membership vote to take place as early
as Saturday or Sunday.
Terms 'of the proposed construction
workers' wage-contract settlement were
not disclosed.
The walkout by mine construction
workers has kept
_thousands of coal
miners, who refuse to cross the con
struction workers' picket lines, out s of
work as well in spite of the general
settlement of a wage-contract for coal
miners weeks ago.
The brief announcement last night by
the federal mediation service said:
"Federal mediators tonight an
nounced that a tentative agreement has
been reached in a dispute between the
Association of Bituminous Contractors
and the United Mine Workers.
"...The proposed agreement must be
approved by the UMW bargaining
The Housialso sent to the Senate a
$4.8 billion companion appropriations
bill to fund part of• the program im
mediately, tout the Senate did not im
mediately act on this companion bill.
Most of the new jobs created by the
unemployment bill would be in the areas
of public safety, education, health care,
child care and sanitation. But the plan
would find work for only a small per
centage of America's six million
unemployed.
House passage came only hours after
the Labor Department announcned that
every state in the union reported in
creased unemployment insurance rolls
on Nov. 30.
A total of 2,982,600 persons received
unemployment insurance benefits in the
week ended Nov. 30—up 553,700 from the
previous week and 1,4 million over a
year ago, the Labor Department said.
Most of the jobless currently are not
covered by unemploument insurance.
The $5.5 billion bill is a compromise
worked out Tuesday by House and
Senate negotiators. About $2.5 billion
would create 330,000 jobs in hospitals,
fire departments and other public
agencies, with average pay of $7,800 per
year.
Student files: A matter of record
council, which, was scheduled to meet at
9 p.m. EST."
The terms of the proposed contract
were not disclosed.
If the propbsal is
. passed by the
Bargaining Council, however, it still
would have to be ratified by general
membership vote, an official said.
The UMW construction workers have
been on strike around the nation since
Nov. 11.
Their picket lines have kept about
45,000 of the 120,000 UMW coal mineis
from resuming work in various
coalfields.
• Although construction workers have
stopped picketing in western Penn
sylvania, pickets were active in five
other states. Miners held meetings in
central Pennsylvania and Indiana to
decide if they would continue honoring
picket lines. Nearly 90 per cent of West
Virginia's union mines were also closed.
Another $2.5 billion would give special
unemployment benefits for 26 weeks to
unemployed workers not now covered by
unemployment insurance—mainly
dornestic workers, farm. workers and
state and local government employes.
Also, $500,000 would go for public and
private works projects to create em
ployment.
The unemployment rate in November
was 6.5 per cent and Treasury Secretary
William Simon told a Senate committee
earlier this week the figure could climb
to 7.5 per cent next year.
Darker forecasts have ranged as high
as 10 per cent.
On Nov. 30, the Labor Department
said, the rate for workers covered by
jobless insurance rose to 4.5 per cent
frl;im 3.8 per cent the previous week.
The largest increases in unem
ployment were reported in California,
42,600; North Carolina, 41,300; Illinois,
38,600; New York, 30,700; Pennsylvania
28,200; New Jersey, 27,000; Michigan,
23,300, and Wisconsin, 20,900.
Labor Secretary Peter J. Brennan
yesterday asked state leaders to hastily
prepare the groundwork for im
plementing new federal unemployment
agsistance legislation.
right to challenge them if they find that they are in error." .
Letters of recommendation haven't presentedla big problem
either, he said.
"We don't use letters of recommendation in our admission
process," he said. "Many application folders don't even have
any. I doubt if we'd fled any letters marked 'confidential.' It's
rare that we see one like that. It's also a rarity to see one that's
not favorable to the students."
Haffner added that he thought copiei of letters of recom
mendation are sent to the student. He also said that the office
may request that such letters not be sent to the University.
"Our only question is record that originate elsewhere,"
apart
country is in a flux and regardless of the
recommendation it may be the inap
propriate time to implement it," Murray
said.
Some members said they still felt the
commission .should made a concrete
proposal, and' recommended that it be
disbanded if it cannot do so.
James Bartoo, dean of the graduate
school, suggested that the commission
merely recommend either term or
semester systemt in general to Oswald
without any further specification.
James Dungan, director of in
stitutional research and planning, said
this wouldn't be feasible because Oswald
would have to appoint committees i to look
into specific calendars and they would
run into the same problems as the com
mission.
Lewis suggested that the commission
recommend semesters but added that
the modified term system could be used
as a transitional period for the fall of
1975. While the modified term sytem is
in use, Oswald could be studying the
semester system, Lewis said. •
Murray also suggested a semester
system like the University of Penn
sylvania has. The first semester would
run from Labor Day to Christmas no
matter how many class meetings and
weeks it contained. Then there would be
a traditional 15-week semester.
Soviets
MOSCOW (UPl)—The Soviet Union
yesterday renounced any trade
agreement with the United States that
would bind Moscow to ease emigration,
particularly of Soviet Jews.
The move came in a letter from Soviet
Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko
handed to Secretary of State Henry A.
Kissinger on Oct. 26, nearly two, months
ago, the Tass news agency reported.
An official Government statement
carried by Tass accused Kissinger of
keeping quiet the true Soviet position.
It denounced the trade bill under con
sideration by the U.S. Congress for "at
tempts to include provis?ons con
cerning...the departure of Soviet citizens
for other countries."
It said Moscow "flatly rejected as
unacceptable...any attempts to interfere
in interjial affairs that are entirely the
concernlof the Soviet state and no one
else." •
After two yearst,of delay, the Senate
last Friday passed one version of a trade
Ford asks steel price rollback
WASHINGTON (UPl)—The White .
House said yesterday President Ford is
pushing U.S. Steel Corp.•to roll back its 8
per cent steel price increase, and hopes
the steel industry in general will put a
freeze on any price increases.
Press Secretary Ron Nessen said he
did not know if Ford had made his views
known personally to the big steel
company. But the Council on Wage and
Price Stability, which Ford directed on enforcement powers, would study the
, Tuesday to investigate the price hike, *company's reply and then make a report
had. to the administration. The council has
"The wage and price stability council, held hearings on other price situations,
reflecting the President's views, hopes notably :sugar, but beyond focusing
U.S. Steel will lower its announced in- public attention on problems, it has no
creases and that other steel companies real authority:
will keep the public interest in mind and Nessen claimed, however, that the
not raise their prices to the level of U:S. council had been able to get Ford Motor
Haffner said, describing one problem the amendment information in front of a hearing board."'
presents. ”We're not the originators of a student's high school Information for the Conduct Standards files isn't sought
record. Before the Buckley Amendment, we could refer outside the University.
students back to the original source. "There's no need to look into a student's` past," Murphy
"Certain private schools send a transfer's records to us said. "As far as we're concerned, life begins at 18."
stamped 'Confidential—for your evaluation only,"! he con- 1 And he added that information gathered for these files does
tinued. "We feel uncomfortable• about this. We have to make it ' not go out. For instance, unless civil charges are brought
clear to these universities that all information on g file must be against the student, records of a drug raid will not go beyond
available to students." ~,- the University's files and will be destroyed when the student
Haffner said the amendment will probably change policy on - graduates.
records sent, to graduated students who request it for em- Murphy said that the records of other divisions—Financial
ployment or' academic reasons. Aid, Student Assistance Center, Educational Opportunity
"In the past, if someone wrote from New York asking for a Program and Career Development and Placement—aren't
transcript, we'd assume it was his own and send it," he said. generally requested for examination by students.
"Now, people outsid4 the University will need a notarized Hargleroad said that another reason for the, close watch
statement." Each division will produce a mock display in January bf
,
Over in Boucke, Murphy said some divisions within Student what records they keep, their purpose, storage, security and
Affairs have no records at all. There may be files of forms disposition, Murphy said.
students have filled out, such as their activities card or their But there is a division within Student Affairs that keeps
religious preference card, but "these„in my judgment, are not records on students indefipktly—the Ritenour Health Center.
records," he said. ~
The center is very stri bout who can get their hands on
"They become records only when information is added or these records. When a student comes in for service, he
detracted by other persons within the University." presents his identification card to a clerk and the clerk
Murphy said that no records of a student's political af- removes his file from the shelf and gives it to a nurse. The
filiations are kept. 1
nurse takes it and deposits it in a basket outside the door of the
"Except as it appears in The Daily Collegian persons do not doctor the patient is to see.
know of another's political status," he said. According to John A. Hargleroad, director of University
One division that does keep records is the Office of Conduct Health Service, there are reasons for such cautious handling
Standards. Their files contain proceedings against persons, of rords. .3
reports from the security department, rationale for On reason, he said, is that Ritenour's doctors work in a
disciplinary action and copies of letters of notification to the tea system and write notes for themselves and among
dean if a student has been Suspended. themselves concerning the patient.. Such notes appear on the
"These have always been available to the student," Murphy medical card and may only be a speculative diagnosis: If a
said. "And no records are kept on a student who has been student sees such "words as leukemia andciononucleosis
taken in but not charged." scrawled on his record, both possibilities of an abnormal blood
. . .
t•N•
Murphy added that only the student can see or release his
own records from Conduct Standard's files, and that these
records are destroyed when the student graduates. •
"There may be misunderstandings of a particular report by
the writer or his secretary," he said. "Students may cor.•test
Ten cents per copy
•
Thursday, December 19, 1974;
Vol. 75, No. 91 10 pages University Park, Pennsylvania
Published by Students of The Pennsylvahia State University
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8.11,341.1 L• - ,-.
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New USG veep
JIM NIAZA, right, is sworn in as Undergraduate Student Go% ernment rice
president by USG Supreme Court Chief Justice Lou Nlartarano at last night's
.'Academic Assembly meeting. See story p. 10.
end trade pact
bill to offer the Soviet Union non
discriminatory trade terms in exchange
for freer emigration.
The bill awaits reconciliation with a
similar bill from the House of Represen
tatives before going to President Ford
for his signature.
Gromyko protested that 'eluci
dations" given by the Soviet Union
were interpreted by the United States as
"assurances and nearly obligations on
our part regarding the procedure of the
departure of Soviet citizens from the
USSR."
Sen. Henry M. Jackson, D-Wash., chief
proponent of moves to tie the U:S. trade
will with the emigration of Russian Jews,
said after a Kissinger-Gromyko, f meeting
earlier this year that the Russians had
agreed to the emigration of 60,000 per
sons.
"Some figures are even being quoted
as to the supposed number of such
citizens and there is talk about an an
ticipated increase of that number as
compared with previous years,"
Steel," Nessen said.
He alio said U.S. Steel had told the
council it would respond in writing by
tomorrow to the council's request made
Tuesday for a justification in writing of
the price hike.
It was not clear whether Ford wants a
complete rollback in the, price increase,
or just a portion of it.
Nessen said the council, which has no
''ari 1
I
f
• 1 4
Gromyko said. "We resolutely decline
,such an interpretation."
In passing the trade bill by the large
margin of 77-4, the Senate endorsed by an
88-0 vote an amendment by Jackson to
provide most-favored-nation treatment
for the Soviet Unign only if Russia opens
its doors to unhappy citizens.
The amendment had held up passage
of the bill for the last year until Jackson
on Oct. 18 released letters between him
self and Kissinger which he said con
stituted a compromise agreement in
volving the Russians.
Gromyko's letter referred to
"publication in the United States ,of
materials of which you are aware and
which touch upon the departure of a cer
tain category of Soviet citizens."
"I must say straightforwardly that the
above-mentioned materials, including
the correspondence between you and
Senator Jackson, create a distorted pic
ture of our position as well as of what we
,told the American side on the matter, -
`Gromyko said.
Co. to cut back some planned car price
increases by as much as $l5O.
In. Detroit a Ford Motor Co.
spokesman denied the council had in
fluenced its car prices.
"We don't know of any such action by
the council affecting us," an assistant
controller for marketing said. He
suggested the council kid been thinking
about the $l5O .ut in the price of the
company's Pinto, which was not due to
council action.
Light snow this afternoon and tonight,
partly cloudy with snow flurries
tomorrow. High both days, 32. Low
tonight, 28.
count, he could jump to the wrong conclusion.
"Now certainly we try to be as open with patients as
possible here," Hargleroad said. "But it's a doctor's job not to
unnecessarily alarm a student or patient."
Continued on Page 5.
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