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monday, february 28, 1 972
ilincoln, nebraska vol. 95, no. 76
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Zumberge
modifies
visitation
policy
A mass violation of current RHA
visitation policy scheduled for Monday
night has been cancelled, according to
Roger Story, RHA president. Story said
Sunday the cancellation is a result of
modifications made in the present
visitation policy by UNL Chancellor
James H. Zumberge.
At a Friday press conference RHA said
80 per cent of all dormitory residents
were expected to participate Monday
night.
Zumberge said Sunday he is using the
authority of his office to liberalize the
present policy. The changes will become
official pending the Board of Regents'
approval at their next meeting, March 11.
The modifications include authorizing
residence .hall officers to sponsor
visitation hours. Such hours could
previously only be sponsored by faculty,
staff or parents.
Although the intent of RHA hours
remains the same, he said, the type of
hours allowed "will be interpreted
without any preconceived idea of what
percentage of RHA hours must be
devoted to social or educational activity."
The changes do not include allowing
residents to dose their doors if they have
a visitor of the opposite sex. Neither do
they allow a floor to et up visitation
hours by one vote. The Magrath proposal
would have implemented both these
changes.
Zumberge said the compromise
resulted from negotiations which began
Wednesday with RHA and ASUN officials
and staff members from the office of
Student Affairs. The proposal was
finalized Saturday. Zumberge said he
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Csfore things came to a screeching halt . . student government
housing officials discussed mass violations of housing policy.
and
then conferred with members of the
Board of Regents by telephone.
The chancellor emphasized the
changes are only temporary measures and
will have to be finalized by the board at
an open meeting.
He said the compromise is
"reasonable. We had to recognize what
the alternatives are."
Steve Fowler, ASUN president, said
the agreement was reached to avoid
confrontation Monday night.
"I hope this compromise will set a
precedent for future changes in visitation
policy ," he said. These types of changes
should be made without expensive and
time-consuming parental surveys."
Said Fowler: 'The Board of Regents
should not concern itself with so much
trivia. There are more important things to
do within the University."
He said he hopes modifications will
continue to be made "as students reach
toward the goal of self- determination."
Story said the compromise meets the
needs of the University, the students and
the Board of Regents.
"Zumberge and the regents have acted
in good faith toward the students," he
said.
Both Fowler and Story praised
Zumberge's action. Fowler called the
compromise a wise move and said the
chancellor "made a good effort to find
out student opinion."
Story said Zumberge had been
sympathetic. "He tried to find out
student ooinion and to see things from all
sides."
Planned
excellence
By M. J. Wilson
Cribbing has long been one of the minor problems of
academic life. But lately the practice of turning in someone
else's work as your own has assumed major proportions on
campuses across America.
In fact, cribbing has become a business and, at its present
rate of growth, could soon become a big business.
Organizations specializing in the s ale of custom-made term
papers have begun to operate openly. They advertise in
campus newspapers and on the radio. Their hard-sen leaflets
are distributed in dormitories, student unions, even in
classroom buildings.
"If your holidays are going to be another academic
nightmare spent working -or worrying about not working
bring your deadlines to us," said hundreds of pink-and-yellow
fliers put out just before Christmas vacation by Creative
Communications Consultants, which operates on the Urbana
campus of the University of I llinois.
In New York, an outfit called Termpapers, Inc., has been
doing business so widely and so blatantly that the state
attorney general's office has brought suit to put it out of
business.
And Planned Paperhood. the largest term paper mill in
Berkeley. Calif., has been threatened with legal action by
Norman Epstein, counsel of the California State College Board
of Regents. . m
This has become a substantial business-a major attar,
says Epstein. "But the difficulty in bringing legal action is that
Vs? J . -I ft n
it's a sort of consumptive offense. Neither party is about to
blow the whistle."
Indeed, the students who buy the papers for about $3.50
per page-seem as happy with the arrangement as the people
who sell them.
"Even if I write a paper myself," says a University of
Maryland coed, "the professor isn't going to read it. How can
he? He's got about 300 people writing papers for him. He'll
just farm it out to some graduate student."
The entrepreneurs seem even less morally torn than their
customers. For one thing, they are mostly graduate students
themselves and are bitter at the current difficulty in finding
jobs in their specialties. They are also masters at the art of
self-justification.
"There is absolutely nothing illegal about this service," says
Edward J. Whalen, 29, who until recently taught rhetoric and
writing at the University of Illinois while working on his
graduate, degree. "It's not sneaky plagiarism that we do. It's a
matter of collecting data and providing eloquent prose."
In Denver, a firm called Research and Educational
Associates, Ltd, has five full-time employees and some 20
free-lance writers. Its founder, Charles Johnson, maintains that
what he is doing is no different from the Encyclopaedia
Britannica Service where research papers are done on specific
subjects.
The current boom in the term paper business began in
Boston in late 1970 and soon spread around the country.
Many of those involved are in communication with one
another and exchange papers though all are quick to say that
they do not sell the same paper to two students in the same
rea.
Usually the individual transaction begins when the student
telephones the company, is quoted a price and then goes to
the office to fill out an information sheet on his project. He
also puts down a deposit. The paper is assigned to one of the
firm's writers and is ordinarily promised for the following
week or 10 days.
But the entrepreneurs themselves may have the clearest
view of the cribbing business. "There's a good reason why
we're doing so well," says Eric Nisenson, co-manager of the
San Francisco outlet of Termpapers Unlimited, a Boston-based
outfit which claims it will net $1 million this year.
"Education is a joke these days and most students are
aware of it," he argues. "But the schools are turning their
backs on the problems. When they wake up, we'll go out of
business."
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