I was also off-campus for the 78-79 year, which in retrospect was a mistake, as that caused me to miss a lot of went on.
I'm wondering if the Disneyland trips started in 78-79?
Anyhow, fun story about the Chinese students!
We also had Page House excursions to the premier of Alien, which was pretty exciting for me, whereas today doesn't even elicit a flicker of interest :-/
The best was a House excursion to see Animal House. The one-liners from that movie became memes from the next year. One dude was taking an extra year to get his degree, and all year people would pass him in the hall with <cough>5 years of college down the drain!</cough>.
It's nice to see a fellow techer here on HN, especially a vintage 1970s one!