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Show VOL. 89 No. 68 THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1979 I I Dtagun By Holly Mullen-Gree- n Chronicle Assistant News Editor Local reaction to the Church of Jesus Saints' excommunChrist of Latter-da- y ication of feminist Sonia Johnson is mixed. offered their Mormons and opinion on the decision Thursday. Kathryn MacKay, a Mormon member of the Support of Sonia Committee, testified on behalf of Johnson at her December 1 bishop's court trial. "I feel very deeply for Sonia. I believe she is very committed to thejchurch and I testified to that. She has always wanted the church to be honest with the sisters and to offer them support," MacKay said. "At the trial we felt the cards were stacked against her," MacKay said. "The proceedings were heavily guarded. Although I've heard in Relief Society that bishop's courts are courts of love and understanding, this one was neither open nor friendly." "The decision is not a boon to sisterhood, by any means," MacKay said. "I think it non-Mormo- ns w imd,S might very well polarize and divide men and women in the church on the ERA issue more than ever." There are already three distinct groups within the church as a result ofjohnson's excommunication, acording to MacKay. MacKay said one group believes "she got what she deserved. The brethren know what they're doing, and they made the right decision," she said. Another group is "feeling a real fear. Women who have been feminists for years are especially frightened," MacKay added. "Still another group, like myself, feels real anger. We now have a renewed interest to mim msi convert you to my church. We need women like you in the church.' " Virginia Peterson, a Mormon supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, said "I am grieved by the trial and excommunication of Sonia. I feel everyone is the loser Sonia, the church, men and women. I'm afraid, once again sisters in the church will be divided and working against each other." Don LeFevre, a church spokesman, said he does not know if other Mormons favoring the amendment will stifle their support as a result of the church's decision. fight." "I'm shocked and deeply saddened by the decision," said Margi Walters, a member of the Support of Sonia non-Mormo- Committee. "Sonia is one of the most admirable women I've ever met," Walters said. "She is very spiritually developed and loves her church. The first time I met her in Salt Lake City she said 'you're so enthusiastic, I want to separate is Hunger Project, an organization dedicated to ending hunger on Earth by 1997, will hold a conference at the intentions. She'd worked long and hard for her doctorate, and labored many months with a reluctant Bureau of Indian Affairs to develop statistics for her dissertation. Once all that was done, she got cold feet. "Although I had X amount of English training in college," Mendoza, now a guidance counslor in Tulsa, Okla., recalls, "I felt that I was not adept enough with the lingo" to actually write the dissertation -- herself. When she asked her advisor about commissioning someone else to do the writing, she says her advisor didn't forbid her. So on April 17. 1978, she sent a $400 check and a letter to Pacific Research of Seattle, a firm which sells "research" papers to anyone with the requisite cash. True to its word, Pacific Research soon delivered a dissertation with the impressive title of "The Weschler Intelligence Scales for Children and the Wide Range Achievement Test: Their Use on Native American Indian Children." ethical Does she have any dissertation? her doubts about purchased Not really. She says her purchase, which one Pacific Research insider estimated probably post-gradua- te cost $1000 to complete, "goes on everywhere." She's right. Though there are no available sales estimates in this closed-mout- h industry, term paper selling is enjoying a boom, if Pacific Research accurately reflects what is going on. Gil Shere and Michael Gross, two Washington grads, parlayed a copying business in Seattle's university district into a mail-ordcatalogue full of term papers for sale in 1974. Since then, the business has er spilled over from one to four converted houses full of three dozen employees on Queen Anne Hill, and includes a graphics arts department, four divisions, and even computer time bought from a local bank. The number of computer terminals in the office, according to a Pacific Research employee, has doubled in just the last year. In the process, Shere and Gross wha refused to comment, have cranked up an impressive sales machine which includes widespread advertising in college board newspapers and magazines, bulletin coupons and, of course, the catalogue, with some 7500 prewritten papers on subjects ranging from "America: Contemporary Social Life" to zoology. The firm, like other research services, also offers "custom research," which currently goes for $7.50 per page of undergraduate work, and $9 per page for graduate, scientific or technical work. Their rates are competitive with the other major research companies. The maximum charge of Los Angeles' Research Assistance for one of the 10,000 titles it claims to have on file is $69.50, 50 cents less than Pacific's maximum. Some of the other major and minor research firms around are Collegiate Research, International Termpapers, and such colorfullynamed groups as Planned Write-On- , Paperhood, Quality Bullshit and Inc. : The quality of their work inevitably varies. Mendoza found her dissertation was "inconclusive." A student reporter at Youngstown State bought a paper from Research Assistance as part of a story on buying papers and found that the research she'd bought was itself palgiarized from a Saturday. Review article. Frank Johnson of Research Assistance told College Press Service that such plagarism cases "had never happened" and that while the firm had no editorial review board or it had a "very reliable staff." Yet the work is good enough often enough to bring some students passing grades,and others, like Mendoza, full graduate degrees. College Press Service, for example, has found that Nebraska unwittingly granted a masters in education this summer to a high school on principal who had submitted a thesis of ome least did at which Pacific Research the work. It happens often enough to generate a lot of concern among educators. Plagiarized papers represent nothing less than "a breakdown of trust in the academic community,? according 1966 fact-checkin- g, self-oriente- d movements of the '70s. The purpose of the conference is to "have people acknowledge that they can make a difference. To create a context for sufficiency," according to Robert Lambert, chairman of the Salt Lake Hunger Project Committee. However, according to an article in Mother Jones last December, the Hunger Project has a different set of goals: "Werner Erhard is using the Hunger but Project not only for for promoting the corporation (est) he founded, as well. The Hunger Project is a thinly veiled recruitment arm for-prof- it for est." "In various cities across the country, Erhard's disciples have organized a "Hunger Project Seminar Series" at $30 per enrollment. Yet the proceeds go, not to the Hunger Project, but directly to est." "The official claim that est and the to Layton Olson of the National Student Educational Fund. "When a student who is studying feels other students may be buying a grade," Olson wrote in April, "There is a breakdown in the rules of the game for which the consumer has contracted." Ten states California, New York, North Carolina, Illinois, Massachusets, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington and New Jersey or Hunger Project are organizationally Francis Chronicle Senior Reporter By Steve many evangelistic, students, Rainy Mendoza had honorable authorities. criticizod as profh-mok- of Werner Erhard, founder of Erhard Seminar Training (est), which is one of the Like many communicate with higher church n University this weekend. The Hunger Project is the latest venture College Press Service LeFevre maintained the church's stand that Johnson was not excommunicated on her support of the ERA alone. "For those without the fact," LeFevre said, "this trial has probably hurt the church. They probably have the wrong impression of church courts." LeFevre said he is unaware of any Salt Lake City church officials influencing Bishop Jeffrey Willis decision. MacKay, however, said she is not convinced that Willis did not have tried to legislate against companies selling term papers. They are tough laws to enforce. For one thing, there are legitirfiate research sources, and the line between protecting legitimate research sources and controlling retail plagiarism is a fine one. "If we're not .careful," Washington legislator Don Charnley noted, "we could put the Encyclopedia Brittanica out of business." fabrication. Careful a examination reveals that top personnel pass through a revolving door from est to the Hunger Project." The information was obtained during a investigation by Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting in Oakland, Calif. While it is true that Erhard founded both est and the Hunger Project, beyond that, they are no longer connected, Lambert said. The conference at the University this weekend is free to the public and is not related to the seminars that occurred in the past, be said. It will begin at 2 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. Sunday in Art and six-mon- th Achitecture 158. The Hunger Project seminar "took place a couple years back for the purpose of letting people know about the Hunger Project," Lambert said. The Hunger Project has 800,000 members throughout the world, but they are neither required, nor encouraged, to join est, Lambert said. Currently, the Hunger Project is working with the Red Cross, channeling people toward the Red Cross and encouraging people to donate time and money to the Red Cross hunger organization, he said. Nevertheless, prosecuters still haven't found a way to halt the firms. The demand for the firms' services, meanwhile, seems to be strong, and the entrepreneurs maintain the demand and sanction their continued operations. Students are entitled to buy research, says John Hopkins of Collegiate Research Systems, because colleges themselves are hypocritical. "The educational system has its own problems," he told a Detroit newspajxT. "The presidents of some colleges in New York have abused the educational funds to finance their private trips to Europe and elsewhere." It is doubtful, however, that many term paper customers viewiheir purchases as its righteous blows against hypocrisy. In accurately sees its function as "making college life easier." Non-pro- fit Org. U.S. Postaga Paid Ptrmlt No. 1529k Salt Lakt City, Utah ... i- - |
