The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 55

ifl'SMII fV I State College Trustees Revise Grade System 1 ff 2 Students Enabled to Take Extra Courses Without Penalty Risk BY WILLIAM TROMBLEY Tlmn Education Writtr State college trustees have revised grading practices in the 19-campus system, making it easier for students to take courses on a credit-no credit basis instead of receiving the usual to letter grades. The change Is intended to encourage students to take courses outside their areas of academic strength, William B. Langsdorf, vice chancellor for academic affairs, told the trustees when they met in Los Angeles last week. A student who is strong in chemistry or physics may hesitate to take a course in fine arts for fear a poor grade would reduce his overall grade-point average, Langsdorf said. The new system would enable the science student to enroll in the fine arts course on a credit-no credit basis.

If he did poorly in the course he would receive a "no credit" grade but he would not have a or an on his record. In order to receive credit for a course a student must do or work. This makes the state college approach stricter than pass-fail grading at most schools, where is considered a passing grade and only work is regarded as failure. In order to make sure students do not take all of their most difficult courses on a credit-no credit basis state college officials have devised a "progress point index" to measure a student's progress toward his degree. Both Qualifying Grades For example, a student who receives a "credit" grade in one three-unit course and a "no credit" grade in another, and at the same time receives, an and a in letter-grade courses, would have a grade-point average of 3.0 and a progress-point index of 24, both of which would qualify him for good academic standing.

However, a student who received two "no credit" grades, plus an and a would be placed on academic probation because his progress-point index would be only 21, even though his grade -point average would be a lofty 3.5. The trustees left it up to each college to decide whether to use the new grading option. Most campuses already have some form of the credit-no credit system. The trustees adopted the new grading procedures without opposition after hearing support expressed by Stephen Horn, president of Cal State Long Beach; David Provost, chairman of the statewide Faculty Academic Senate, and Arnie Braa-fladt, student body president at Humboldt State College. SECOND BEST Stuntwoman Julie Ann Johnson winces in pain in a scene from the unreleased film, "Man Without Mercy," after coming out the loser in a fight staged with another woman.

Stuntwomen Stand on Feats N.Y. IN 12 DAYS Slow Flight Still Possible -in a Blimp BY JOAN SWEENEY Times Staff Writer What la longer and taller than a DC-10 jumbo jet, has a crew of 22 but carries a maximum of only 7 persons and sometimes flies backward while trying to go forward? A Goodyear blimp. The blimp, which looks something like a pregnant cigar floating through the air, has a cruising speed of only 30-35 m.p.h. So all it takes is a 40 m.p.h. headwind for the pilot to discover he is flying backward.

"It can be quite a thrill to see the ground going the other way," said Tom Riley, a blimp pilot for four years before he became the public relations representative for the Columbia, the Goodyear blimp that flies ihe friendly skies of Los Angeles. "I have seen times when we've flown backward for a half hour because we couldn't get enough power to go forward," he said. The Columbia is 192 feet long 7 feet longer than the DC-10 and stands 59 feet high. It is equipped with all the instruments a jet has except radar. One Jet Engine It even has a jet engine but not to power the blimp.

It is used to run the Columbia's giant signboard with its 7,560 colored lightbulbs that flash messages in the night sky. Two 210-horsepower engines propel the blimp. While the blimp's dimensions put it in the Boeing 747 class in size, the similarity ends there. For one thing, it is propelled by propellers not jets which are mounted backward, and it has only one landing wheel. And it has fins instead of wings.

As a result, when the blimp takes off, it looks like a giant whale leaping from the water. In fact, even the whales are fooled sometimes. Each year the Columbia participates in a whale count off the coast and chief pilot Nick Nicolary says, "The whales think we're just one of the family." Unlike the 640 m.p.h. 747 that carries up to 490 passengers, the blimp's maximum capacity in its small cabin, attached to the belly of the balloon by cables, is six passengers plus the pilot. And with an absolute top speed of 50 m.p.h., it is definitely not for someone in a hurry.

"If we're lucky, we can make it from Los Angeles to New York in 12 days," Nicolary said. He recalls one flight in a storm from Texarkana to Ft. Worth, a distance of 200 miles, that took 12 hours. The Columbia is home in Los Angeles from November to May and travels the rest of the year, visiting such events as the Sturgis, Please Turn to Back Page, Col. 1 Rites Scheduled for Judge McRoberfs Funeral services for Superior Judge James M.

McRoberts, 69, who collapsed and died in his boat Saturday at Newport Beach will be held Thursday. An autopsy is scheduled. Judge McRoberts was supervising judge of the northwest district of the Los Angeles County Superior Court system in Van Nuys. He was appointed to the bench by Gov. Goodwin J.

Knight in June, 1958. The family home is in West Los Angeles. His death came during a visit to the McRoberts' second home at Balboa Island. Judge McRoberts underwent open heart surgery last March, but had returned to courtroom duties after what doctors said was a satisfactory recovery. Active County Bar Member He was born in Princeton, came to California 10 years later, was graduated from Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles and earned a bachelor's degree from Stanford and a law degree from Southwestern University.

He was admitted to the State Bar in 1932 and was an active member of the Los Angeles County Bar when named to the Superior Court. He leaves his wife, Jane, a son, James D. McRoberts, a daughter, Nancy Mitchell of Phoenix, and a grandson and granddaughter. Services will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at St.

Alban's Episcopal Church, West Los Angeles, with Pierce' Bros. Mortuary in charge of arrangements. Interment will be at Rosedale Cemetery. Being Run Over Punched, Drowned All in Day's Work BY DAVID LAMB Timts Staff Writtr To a worried husband, her words were hardly reassuring. But each morning at breakfast, Irving Marcus, a Sherman Oaks realtor, would ask again: "Are you sure it won't be too And each morning, his wife, a Hollywood stunt-woman, would answer something like: "Of course not, honey, I'm only going to get run over by a car today." Or perhaps Pepper Curtis, a blonde mother of two, would have to jump from an airplane, fall off a five-story ledge or crash a car.

"I also did a lot of drowning in Jerry Lewis movies," she said. But no matter. It's all in a day's work for the 18 women who compose one of Hollywood's most unusual and unpublicized groups the Stuntwo-men's Assn. of Motion Pictures. The association was formed in 1958 to enable its members to establish themselves as performers with a specialty rather than as extras who do stunts on the side.

Its members also wanted to obtain professional equality with the approximately 200 stuntmen in Hollywood, a goal that has been largely realized. Stuntwomen now receive from $138, the union minimum, to upwards of $1,500 for a stunt, depending how dangerous and difficult it is and how long it takes to film. The fee is negotiable, usually after the feat is performed. "We get a lot of letters from out-of-state girls wanting to know how they can get into the business," said association president Stevie Myers. "But there's no school.

You learn through hard knocks." And hard knocks there are. The women receive no credit lines and no calls from agents. They seldom get rich or famous or hounded for autographs. They get bruised and battered and occasionally Please Turn to Page 2, Col. 1 CC PART II 2t MONDAY, NOV.

29, 1971 Minister Defends World Church Unit Against Attacks BY DAN L. THRAPP Timts Religion Editor A strong defense of the harshly attacked World Council of Churches Sunday stressed the "tragedy" that would result if its cooperative Christian work were disrupted. Dr. Don R. Boyd, minister of the First United Methodist Church, said the WCC was the apex of "probably the most significant movement on the whole Christian scene in the 20th century." The WCC came under assault this fall in two articles in the Reader's Digest.

The articles accused it of promoting insurrection and communism in this country and abroad. Many leading churchmen and denominations and organizations have officially assailed the articles for being inaccurate in many details and for reaching conclusions unjustified by the facts. 'Vicious Consequences' Reported Christian Century, a nondenomin-ational journal of considerable prestige, noted that the articles' "promiscuous disregard for facts has already had vicious consequences." "Gullible, if not malicious, newspaper editors around the United States have taken (the) articles to be the truth and have mounted editorial barrages against the WCC," it said. The damage has come at a time when "the ecumenical movement deserves steadfast support and special commendation," not condemnation, it added. Dr.

Boyd said that the WCC was an outgrowth of the conciliar movement to enable churches to do together what they could not accomplish individually. The movement first was manifest in local councils of churches, of which many still exist, and then Please Turn to Page 3, Col. 1 International day he and an actor friend were playing with the man's youngster. "My friend and his son were playing cowboys and Indians and the boy lifted his toy gun and said, 'Bang! Bang! You're And the father, in the spirit of the game, keeled over -and very shortly the youngster was in tears and there was no longer any fun to it," Sokol relates. What had happened, Sokol says, is that although the boy may have had an unconscious urge to hurt his father, which within normal limits, the reality touched him and he became very frightened.

Sokol says that some parents who keep loaded guns in their home tend to deal in a magical thinking, believing that nothing drastic could happen. "When you get parents like this, kids tend to emulate them, and so they too really see these guns as not major weapons of destruction, but playthings that aren't really quite real to them." TV Implicated Sokol says the same syndrome carries over to television. "In television, where there is so much violence, the actors who shoot or who are shot, are on the program the following week so that the whole business isn't quite real and assumes the aura of magic children's play." The magic goes out of the game however, when the "bang" is real, and "you're dead," is said in horror instead of fun. Gun lobbyist Gaffandy, however, believes young children can be taught the safe use of guns and gives his own son as an example. "I taught my son, Dennis, to use a rifle when he was 6.

When he was 10 he single-handedly captured a burglary suspect in our home with an unloaded gun and was given a hero's award by the police." lis HOW TO AVOID DEADLY GAMES Parents Told to Lock Guns, Bullets Away From Children HANGING ON Julie Ann Johnson, doubling for Doris Day in the film, "Caprice," dangles from a broken rope ladder 850 feet in the air. By United Press "Bang! Bang! You're dead." It's heard everywhere in a boy's world. It's sounded in a backyard OK corral with cap pistols snapping or in the living room watching a shoot-em-up western on television. Largely a harmless fantasy in the protective confines of home, the game turns deadly serious when a child stumbles upon a loaded gun left by his parents or shown to him by a friend. Too often the sound of gunfire is real, usually in "quick draw" contests with loaded pistols or rifles.

Pete Gaffandy, legislative representative for the California Pistol and Rifle offers this advice: "Firearms should be locked up, out of reach of children. Ammunition should be kept in a different place and locked. And children should not know about the keys." Precautions Urged Gaffandy says if people take the necessary precautions by taking a firearms safety course and using good common sense, "we could avoid these terrible accidents." "These things can be prevented through good common sense," he says. "It's equivalent to parents having a swimming pool and allowing their children to go in unattended." Another view is offered by Dr. Robert J.

Sokol, a psychiatrist and assistant clinical professor at the University of Southern California. Sokol believes the simple game of cowboys and Indians has some frightening overtones. "Hostility, rivalry, competitiveness between brothers and sisters is par for the course," Sokol says. "But when you provide them with things that are basically toys and then make -the real thing available to the kid, he really doesn't have the ability to distinguish between the impulse of the moment done in play and something that is going to be final and definitive." The psychiatrist tells a story of the I I mmm-: 'a PART II INDEX TIMES EDITORIALS. Page 8.

THE PUBLIC SPEAKS OUT. Page 7. COXRAD. Page 6. D.

J. R. BRUCKXER. Page 6. IXTERLAXDI.

Page 7. NICK B. WILLIAMS. Page 7. ROY WILKIXS.

Page 7. QUIET PASTIME Mrs. Paul favorite cat in Malibu home. Stader, known professionally as stuntwoman Marilyn Moe, sketches Her husband in the background works in fiims as a stuntman. Times photo by Steve Fontanini 1 ss.