Reagan -4 4 By JOHN SCHLANDER Daily Collegian Staff Writer President Reagan's proposed cut backs ask student loan and grant programs and federal endowment programs to shoulder more than their - fair share of the economic austerity Ap burden, the council to the congressional, Subcommittee on post-secondary education, said yesterday. William Blakey said Reagan is , seeking to cut back two major sources of federal aid to students Guaranteed Student Loans and Pell Grants ( f0r ,60 merly called Basic Educational Op portunity Grants)— by about one-third, Blakey said. In fact, Blakey said, no Pell Grant Rapers prepared by research companies *constitute dishonesty Editor's Note: This •is the second in a two-part series on academic dishonesty. Today's article examines term paper companies. By CINDY COX Daily Collegian Staff Writer , TERM PAPER BLUES CURED! ! Flyers carrying that promise were posted on this campus at the end 'of Winter Term and appear on college campuses across the country. Such a proposition seems especially appealing in the eighth week of the term to students who have to write three papers that must be 15 to 20 pages each and also have 14 footnotes. For only $l, the flyers offer to send the weary writer a 400-page catalog of more than 10,000 research papers from Pacific v , Research in Seattle, Wash. The catalog lists prepared papers with topics ranging from Abram Amsel's work on frustrative nonreward theory to naturalism and order in Renaissance Art to the quest for identity in Whitman and Melville. Papers like these, complete with footnotes and bibliography, can be ob tained for only $3 a page. If the catalog does not list a desired topic, Pacific Research will custom-research a topic for $8 a page for undergraduate research, $9 a page for science, business and economics topics and $lO a page for graduate research.• Thesis assistance enn bc-oj?tgitiedfor a mere .5.,a page,:.:.. Sounds 'like a pretty good'deal. Instead of staying iip all night to write a paper, a student can send away for one already written by a staff of experts. vs One small catch. If caught subinitting a term paper prepared by someone else, a student may be charged with plagiarism, which is academic dishonesty, and as a result may receive an F grade or be suspended or expelled from the University. Plagiarism is the act of passing off flO someone else's work as your own, ac cording to a handout prepared by the English department for freshman composition classes. James T. Harwood, associate professor of English and director of the freshman composition program, said he *has never seen a case of plagiarism involving a term paper company. "Plagiarism does not occur very often in my judgment," Harwood said. "It is an infrequent problem but a very serious offense." This is spring? The first day of spring will feature mainly cloudy skies, breezy and cold conditions with occasional flurries and heavier snow bursts that should produce R only a light accumulation. The high today should be in the mid 30s. Con siderable cloudiess and cold tonight with flurries likely and a low of 21. There should be more clouds than sun tomorrow with flurries still possible as the high reaches 39. Sunshine on Sunday should be followed by increasing *cloudiness as temperatures approach 40. Bill Cluck, left, and Ken Reeves hope to squeak past Wimpy the Gerbil and his running mate Fredrick A. Schiller in the upcoming Undergraduate Student Government presidential race. Cluck and Reeves announced their candidacy yesterday. W '202 PATTEZ budget applications have been processed since Reagan took office Jan. 21. • The Department of Education, which processes the applications, will start sending postcards to applicants telling them of the grant suspension, he said. Blakey said he does not expect any applications to be processed in the near future and possibly not in Reagan's tenure of office, although Reagan has budgeted money to the grant program. The subcommittee recently had six days of hearings on the predicted effects of the proposed cutbacks on higher education. Although he said some cuts must be made, the subcommittee will try to reduce these cuts. The sub committee is trying to alert people to the A student can plagiarize in two ways, Harwood said. A student can "naively" plagiarize material from a reference without citing that reference. Students often plagiarize because they are unsure of what must be quoted or attributed in a paper, Harwood said. Also, students can commit the more serious offense of handing in a paper that has been written by someone else, he added. Freshman composition instructors try to forestall plagiarism by approving a student's paper topic and requiring students to hand in their notes and rough drafts when they hand in their paper, Harwood said. Many papers are written on the same subject because up to 5,000 papers a year may be submitted to English 10, 20 and 30 sections, Harwood said. Because each student has a distinctive writing style, instructors would probably he able to recognize if a student handed in a term paper from a research company, Harwood said. Robert M. Stern, head of the depart ment of psychology, agreed that in certain cases instructors would be able' to detect a prepared term paper. "If a student is doing D-level work and he turns in a super paper, the instructor would probably bring the student in and question him," Stern said. "However, in many cases there's really no way to detect it." -A..dPin in the. College .of !The. Liberal Arts said instructors ~,, might have a difficult time proving that a student handed in a paper from a term paper company. "Although students have access to such companies, I can't say that we have much evidence of specific cases," said John J. Romano, associate dean for undergraduate studies. "Term paper companies are a total fraud and a clear violation of any kind of academic in tegrity." This violation of integrity is a serious matter subject to dismissal from the University, said Tom' Broitman, assistant director of undergraduate programs for the College of Business Administration. But, he said, "Whether the student is caught or not is not always the issue. The student is missing the experience of writing a term paper and doing the research." Within the College of Human Development, paper assignments are often specialized so students cannot use term paper companies, said Graham Spanier, associate dean for resident instruction in that college. "Term paper companies provide students with products that turn out to be inferior," he said. "With most of the assignments, the companies aren't able to come up with a•product that students couldn't produce themselves." Harwood said the increase in ghost writing companies is a symptom of serious educational problem. "Students have the notion that posessing a degree is more important than earning a degree," he said. "They lose sight of the educational process." 4 i COPT 7, will cut federal loans to students problems which may result, Blakey said. "If the burden of restraint and austerity is needed, then the burden ought to be evenly spread," he said. "Why should all the cuts be made in education? There's some fat in all these programs." Blakey said other areas of government spending are being asked to take cuts averaging 10 to 12 percent, while education is being asked to take a cut of about 30 percent. "Reagan's whole program is counter productive," he said. "We're talking about cutting back on human capital." Nothing is more worthwhile than human capital, he Said. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) One worker was killed, a second was critically hurt and four others were nearly asphyxiated yesterday when they entered a nitrogen-filled engine compartment of the space shuttle Columbia after a rehearsal for next month's launch, National Aeronautics and Space Ad ministration officials said. The accident marred a- "super" dress-rehearsal of the shuttle's first launch at the Kennedy Space Center, but space agency officials in Washington said the accident was not• a result of any flaw in the shuttle and said there would be no change in the launch schedule. The shuttle, delayed repeatedly by technical problems in the past two years, is to lift off sometime - during the week of April 5. It was the first launch pad fatality at the space center since' El Jan.• 27, 1967, flash fire killed, three Apollo I astronauts during a pre-launch test. Five Rockwell International em ployees were working in the aft section of the orbiter near the engine compartment when they were overcome shortly after 9 a.m., of ficials said. A Kennedy Space Center security guard also was overcome when he went in to help. .NASA spokesmen said it was un clear why the men went into the compartment. "Right now, we just don't know what they were doing in there," said. space center spokesman Chuck Hollinshead. "It all happened in a matter of minutes and we haven't had time to interview people yet to find out exactly what procedure they were doing." But Rockwell spokesman Dick Barton said the men apparently entered the compartment after hearing an announcement clearing technicians to return to work on the launch pad. "I just happened to be in the area,. and I heard the announcement: `Clear for return to normal work.' Regretfully, it was not," Barton said. "They were just doing their normal jobs. All our 'people were waiting around for the test to end. The guy who died was the senior mechanical technician, and each of our men was assigned different duties in the compartment." Added another Rockwell official, who asked not to be identified: "It was a goof-up." The technicians apparently the NASA technician killed "It flies back in his face." Blakey said cutting education for the sake of national defense the only federal program receiving increased allocations is ridiculous. "An aircraft carrier is a sitting duck," he said. "Why build one so it can get blown the hell out of the water?" For the cost of one aircraft carrier, Blakey said, a huge amount of people could be educated. Blakey said he disagreed with Reagan's strategy to force students and their parents to share more of the educational costs. "Many parents are already straining to send their children to school," he said, "They (the Reagan administration) are This file photo shows the engine compartment of the space shuttle Columbia in Which one NASA workman wag killed after a dress rehearsal countdown yesterday. The engine compartment, in which several other workmen were over come by nitrogen gas, is located directly above the circular rocket nozzles. removed an access panel and entered the compartment, unaware it had been purged of oxygen and filled with pure nitrogen. "The aft portion of orbiter nor mally is filled with nitrogen to get all the oxygen out," said space center spokesman Rocky Raab. "That is done to prevent fires in that area and to prevent anything explosive from seeping in there." The workers, unaware they were moving into a "nitrogen purge" zone, were felled quickly by the lack of oxygen, Raab said. "There is no way you can see or smell that you're moving into an area that lacks oxygen," Raab said. "The whole compartment is purged. We insert nitrogen to get rid of the oxygen and other gasses. It is nor mally a closed area and you can only get into it by going through access panels." As officials evacuated launch pad Cluck candidate in USG race By ANNE CONNERS Daily Collegian Staff Write► Bill Cluck (11th-speech com munications) and *Ken Reeves (6th meteorology) announced their can didacy for president and vice president of the Undergraduate Student Govern ment yesterday. Cluck, a USG senator for the past year, said tuition is the major issue facing the University. "Although we can't promise lower tuition, it's time for the student's viewpoint to be considered," Cluck said. If elected he would work to strengthen the Pennsylvania Student Association of State Related Universities, a student lobby association, he said. "We want to inform state legislators about the vital interest education has in our state," Cluck said. Cluck also said he wants to restore visability and credibilty to USG. "The overall theme (of the campaign) is to restore credibility to USG and to increase student awareness of USG and other organizations," Cluck said. To be more responsive to student needs and to get student input, Cluck said he would implement a USG talking about more of a burden than parents already have." Under Reagan's plan, GSLs would no longer be guaranteed, Blakey said. They would no longer be made regardless of the parents', income. Students would be eligible for loans on the basis of "remaining need" which is the cost of the education minus the parents' contribution minus other aid. About 20,000 University students use GSL loans, John Brugel, director of the Office of Student Aid, said. The new Pell Grant program would require middle- to upper-income parents to pay a higher percentage of the education. It would also require a $750 M . . . . . Friday, March 20, 1981 Vol. 81, N0..133 24 pages 39-A as a precaution, emergency medical teams' treated the men at the scene and then rushed them to the Major Health Facility at the Kennedy Space Center. Doctors worked frantically on John Bjornstad, 50, of Titusville, but he died aboard a helicopter en route to the nearby Titusville hospital, Raab said. Another technician, Forrest Cole, of Merritt Island, was stabilized, flown to the Titusville hospital and later airlifted to Shands Teaching Hospital in Gainesville where he was placed in intensive care in critical condition with brain • and lung swelling. A third man, William Wolford, of Rockledge, Fla., was hospitalized in Melbourne for observation. The three others were released after treatment, officials said. The two other Rockwell technicians were identified as Nicholas Mullon and Jay Harper and , Speaker's Bureau consisting of mem bers of USG and other student organizations. The bureau would inform interested student groups about campus issues. "(The bureau would) give USG a chance to be more visible and elicit feedback from students," he said. Cluck also said he would create a Department of Campus and Community Services to "better inform the students about the many services and cultural events available within the University." To combat poor student participation in USG, Cluck said more students should be recruited at orientation. "USG should work with the orientation staffs to inform and recruit incoming students," he said. "This would include workshops and information packets designed to show incoming students where to go with a problem." Reeves, a USG senator for a year and a half, said he would work with USG's Academic Assembly to improve academic advising. "The amount of emphasis put on advising is not as much as we'd like," Reeves said. "There's no formal way of evaluating an instructor." University Park, PA 16802 Published by Students of The Pennsylvania State University ?%I? N ~,,,,,,, ,•,, ,-.,-, I .i 34-6 , Z,, , t' e , . , v 1 7 ,7 :• ~,,,„ e ~.,'`'` .'k ... , ' l 4 I ' l / 4 ",- • V: . •: r —( .l 1 - 1 ' \ ' 4 7";:' ' ' . , .. '. • - 7'..1 7 , 4 i .1 ‘ r" • it a ai .A." ~,.,. .&, .- 1 , - ' : self-help contribution from the student. These two changes cause the remaining need to be less or nothing at all for some students who have received grants in the past. Private colleges and universities will suffer from education cuts more than state-related schools, Blakey said, since students attending private schools generally depend more on federal aid programs to finance their educations. Predominantly black schools will probably suffer the most, he said. Federal endowments to the arts and the humanities will also suffer. Reagan seeks to cut these funds in half, Blakey said. the security guard, an employee of the Wackenhut Corp., was identified as Don Largent. Wackenhut spokesman Dick Wilson said Largent and other guards helped rescue the Rockwell workers. NASA and Rockwell officials quickly appointed boards of inquiry to investigate the accident. Charles Gay, director of the Expendable Vehicle Program, was named to head the NASA committee. The incident came shortly after NASA officials proclaimed that the rehearsal "went super." A simulated ignition at 7:25 a.m. EST, marked the end of the test run, NASA spokesman Mark Hess said. The rehearsal, which began late Tuesday, primarily was a dry run of what astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen will be doing on launch day, Hess said. See related story on Page 3 Another major goal of Cluck and Reeves is to improve minority recruitment at the University and in crease the voice of disabled students in student government, the candidates said. "We're willing to work with other student organizations . to get a more representive group of students at Penn State," Reeves said. Cluck promised to work closely with the Association for Barrier Free Living, Environment and Design. "Disabled students are overlooked in USG and the University," Cluck said. "Our facilities and resources are at their disposal." In political matters, Cluck said he would make student views known to local government officials by strengthening the local liaison depart ment of the USG department of political affairs. USG has been ineffective in the past because of a lack of direction from its executives, Cluck said. "We feel we've been effective as senators and we can appl, me ex perience to the presidency 'and vice presidency," Cluck said. 15' UPI Wirephoto
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