The Los Angeles Loyolan, Volume 51, Issue 11 - February 25, 1974

LOS ANGELES LOYOLAN VOL. 51 NO. 11 A LOYOLA MARYMOUNT PUBLICATION Monday, February 25, 1974 LMU hikes tuition, but refund possible By Craig Cupp Tuition will go up 200 dollars next yealr, the Rev. Donald P. Merrifield, SJ, announced in a February 15 letter to students. “The University Board of Trustees recently approved recommendations for tuition and resident fee increases for the next academic year. Tuition will be raised to $2,250 a year, a $200 increase from the current rate of $2,050,” Merrifield stated in the letter. Housing and Food Services for students living on campus wi 11 also go up about 10 per cent. “ Inflationary cost increase pressure, a slight projected decrease in enrollment, and necessary salary increases for our faculty” were reasons cited by Merrifield for the higher tuition rate. The Board of Trustees also approved the suggestion that if part of the increase proves unnecessary some of the tuition will be refunded to the student. “If the budget we assemble ends up with a surplus we will return part of the student’s tuition,” stated John Pfaffinger, vice-president for Business - Affairs. How much of a surplus will be required before the students get \ some of their money back has not been decided yet, Pfaffinger noted that changing conditions make budget planning extremely difficult. “This year will be difficult to plan because of the things that are going on in our society such as the uncertain inflation rate. For example, the price of paper is up 50 per cent and our utility bill will be 40 per cent higher, even after we cut consumption by 20 per cent. Over the last five years the tuition has increased on the average approximately $100 a year. However LMU's tuition is considered low as compared to comparable institutions, said Pfaffinger. “Loyola is one of the less expensive private institutions. In fact, we use our low tuition as a recruiting pitch. Claremont, Ос c i d e n t a 1 Pe p pe r din e (Malibu), Pomona, Stanford, and USC all have substantially larger tuition than Loyola,” said Dale Marini, assistant director of Admissions. Loyola isn’t the only college raising tuition. “USC already announced a tuition increase for next year, ” said Marini. Tuition at USC is presently $2,754. “I expect most of the other colleges to raise their tuition nexLyear . ” * Nearly 65 per cent of the students at Loyola are receiving some sort of financial aid. “Whether they will get increases in their scholarships and grants is unknown at this time,” Joseph Bednorz , assistant director of financial aid stated. “I don’t know whether there will be increases in Federal Aid. It is up to Congress.” Without increased aid, students may be unable to afford LMU and as a result enrollment will suffer. Vand^ painted Ше lion sometime early Wednesday morning when no one was looking. Colored green, red and white, the lion vaguely resembles an Italian flag. Viktor Frankl addresses chapel overflow crowd by Jim Hillson The pursuit of happiness, according to Dr. Viktor Frank!, professor of Psychiatry at the Uni versit у of Vienna, is self defeating. Faculty underpaid by $2000 By Jeff Taxier “If I had just gotten a masters degree and began teaching at a high school in Los Angeles County I'd be making $13,200 a year. That’s more than I make now, for sure.” Dr . Renate Thimester, assistant professor of Economics, and chairwoman of the Committee on the Economic Status of the Faculty, makes $11,500 a year. She has two bachelor degrees, two masters, and two doctorates. She can speak four languages fluently. “If I got a job as an interpreter I could make twice what I make now,” she said. Instead, as she puts it, “I can't even be middle class.” Although her qualifications may be superior' to other assistant professors at Loyola Marymount, her economic situation is the same* poor. At Loyola, to be “middle class” a teacher must, be a full professor. Middle class in Los Angeles, according to the American ^Association pf University Professors ( A AUP) 1 Bulletin is $16,225 plus, for a four person family, Last year the average professor in the Loyola College of Liberal Arts made $ 16,883. But most teachers at Loyola Marymount are only assistant professors. Socially, according to Dr. Carroll Kearley, professor of Philosophy, these people are as middle class as the students they teach, but economically they do not come close. He feels that the tuition ^increases and the pay hikes that are less than the cost of living increases are liable to force the middle class, Loyola Marymount ’s backbone, off the Westchester campus. Next year the tuition will go up 9.8 per cent. Pay hikes for the faculty will average 7,7 per cent, while the cost of living went up more than ten per cent last year. The situation is bad for all teachers at all colleges in the country , but the situation is worse at Loyola Marymount. Compared to other universities with a religious affiliation, LMU’s pay scale is below the 20th percentile in eve г у c a tego г у except professor. v у The only pay figures available were the figures from the academic year ’71-72, for Loyola and 72-’73 for Marymount. No .figures are available for the University since the merger, and according to Thimester, none seem to be forthcoming. According to the AAUP the projected income for assistant professors at religious affiliated schools at the 20th percentile for 1974-75 is $14,200. A couple of years ago the average salary for an assistant professor was $10,871 at Loyola, and $9,980 at Marymount. The small, less than the cost of living increases, the faculty have been getting since, brings the average at Loyola Marymount nowhere near $14,200. The only reason that th£ pay for professors is comparable to other similar schools is because Loyola includes the Law School in its figures. ‘ ‘The average law school ( Continued on Page 6) Frank!, author of the best selling book, Maw’s Search for Meaning, and survivor of Nazi concentration camps, told an overflQw of 1100 persons in Sacred Heart Chapel last Thursday night that “happiness cannot be pursued, it must ensue; it is a by-product of fulfilling a need, or giving to another person one loves.” Frankl was skeptical of psychoanalysis, as he felt that persons obsessed with an inclincation to hyper-reflect and discuss themselves tend to lose their natural enthusiasm and idealism. He said that the enthusiasm of those persons who do seek meaning and purpose in life may be erroded, “by unmasking psychologists who are motivated to debase and belittle what is authentically human in a human being.” He was also critical of existentialists who consider man nothing more than a computer or a naked ape, and persons who wrap meanings and values up in . defense mechanisms and reaction formations, and explain human phenomena such as love as a supplemented sexual drive, while dismissing the copspious as nothing more than the outcome of conditioning and learning processes. “I am not willing to live for the sake of my defense mechanism (Continued on Page 6) Huinm resigns post Rick Humm, senior and former ASLM director of University relations, resigned his post as special assistant to President Donald P. Merrifield. Humm submitted his resignation a short time after the January 24 student birth control rally at which Humm spoke critically of certain University policies and practices. Humm’s job was specially created for him by Merrifield at the beginning of the academic year. “I resigned,” said Humm, “because I expressed a conflict I had within myself and there was a tremendously strong reaction to that expression on the part of Other members of the President’ s staff. Objections were raised on •my voicing criticism of other members of the staff, ” he said. Merrifield stated that he had heard rumors about Humm’s rally speech. “I asked him if he thought he had said anything that would hinder his future work with the president's staff.” Merrifield maintains that administrators, unlike students or faculty, should not openly disagree with other administrators* especially the president. “They can and should criticize internally, but not publicly,” he said. “As assistant to the president,” said Humm, “I expressed my criticisms to him ( Merrifield ) . He listened, and understood, but we were basically at odds. It came down to split between the student and administrative point of view,” he said. Finally, the differences became so large that he could not honestly deal with them, Humm said. Humm will work on. special projects for Dr. Thomas Quinlan, dean of student affairs for the remainder of the year . According to Humm the major conflict between student viewpoint and administrative viewpoint at LMU stems from a complacency which administrators fall into. They continually say they want to help students, and have unconsciously substituted the words for reality, he said. In addition, said Humm. University administrators often overcomplicate issues to support their positions on what is best for the student. “They make it seem that they are in a bind with no other possibilities.” Other possibilities may be open, but the complacency sets in. he explained. Humm observed that an administrator might take an inflexible stand on adherence to academic rules and regulations to support a decision on one occasion Continued on Page 5)