Daily @§ Trojan
Volume LXVIII, Number 90
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
Wednesday, March 10, 1976
POOF! COTTON CANDY—Glen Gummess, a senior in broadcasting, appears to be using a little magic in order to sell cotton candy for Alpha Epsilon Rho, an honorary broadcasting society. The society sold the candy Tuesday by Tommy Trojan.
Rooms guaranteed in first dorm lottery
All students who reapplied to live in their present housing facilities on campus and participated in Monday’s lottery have been guaranteed a room.
Residential life officials said they were expecting more applicants.
“We were really surprised,” said Sharon M. Kettler, residential assignment coordinator. “We expected that more students would want to return to their same facilities.”
Kettler said the large number of students (nearly 600) who chose the new apartment facilities, Cardinal Gardens and Troy Hall, lowered the number of requests to return to the same housing facility.
Second lottery
Today students participating in the second lottery will be able to sign up for their old rooms.
On Thursday room changes will be allowed with priority given to students holding low lottery numbers. Each student in lottery No. 2 is guaranteed a space but not the type of room desired.
On Monday, lottery No.3, for students who wish to change facilities, will be held. Men will only be able to transfer to Webb Tower or one of the university-owned apartments. All spaces in the undergraduate men’s halls have been filled.
Openings exist for women in all residence facilities.
Kettler said she expects that many students will try to get into Webb Tower. One-third of the spaces in the tower are open. In order to participate in the third lottery, students must not have received housing for next year. Students must get a clearance card from their old facility and take it to the residence hall where they want to move. Each facility will hold its own lottery and will allot all available spaces.
Students who go through all three lotteries and still do not have housing will be placed on a waiting list. During the 1975-76 school year, 500 of the 900 students on the list were placed in a facility before classes began.
System called fair
Kettler said she was pleased with the new lottery procedure and expects it will be in use again next year. “We tried to come up with a system that would be fair and would eliminate students standing in line all night.”
The only complaints, Kettler said, have come from students in the first lottery who did not receive housing (This is approximately 100 students.)
Kettler said she is very optimistic that the new apartments will be completed by September, 1976. “If not, Guy D. Hubbard, director of auxiliary services, said housing will be found, even if we have to rent the Hilton Hotel.”
Maximum award in basic grant program may be cut
By Don La Plante
Associate Editor
Unless Congress appropriates more money, the maximum award for the Basic Education Opportunity Grant program will have to be cut next year.
The present awards range from $50 to $1,400, but the maximum may be decreased to about $1,000 next year.
Michael Scarpelli, director of financial aid, said no firm decisions on the financial aid program for next year have been made and that plans have changed many times so it would be very hard to predict what effect the cutback might have on the university.
He did say he thought there would probably be the expected amount of cutback. The Basic Grant program provides federal money to college students to help finance their education. The money is granted on the
basis of a student’s financial need.
This is the second straight year that the program has had funding problems. This year, the program ran $180 million short and required an appropriation out of this year’s budget to keep from cutting grants.
A request has already been made to Congress for that $180 million to bring the funding for 1976-77 up to the appropriated level of $715 million.
That request will be considered by the House Appropriations committee later this month and by the full House of Representatives in April. After that it requires approval from the Senate and the President’s signature to be official.
To fund the program to its authorized level of $1,400 a maximum grant would require substantial additional sums.
“It’s premature to speculate
on what will happen,” said Ernest Becker, director of program development for the grants in Washington, D.C. “What the level of funding will be for the program is still up in the air.”
Becker said he hoped that it would not take too long to get a request submitted to Congress to increase the funding, but that he had no information on when such a request might occur.
“We would like to finalize the payment schedule to students as soon as possible,” he said. “The question is the funding level. There is no doubt that the present funding level could not be maintained with the present appropriation.”
A staff member in the controller’s office of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare said that the department was still negotiating
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Students debate morality of Supreme Court abortion ruling
By Marcus Oviatt
Staff Writer
Ever since the Supreme Court declared abortion a constitutional right in 1973, the question of the morality of abortion and the Court’s right to rule on it has been a point of controversy.
The Trojan Young Republicans added another chapter to the discussion by sponsoring a debate of the issue in front of Tommy Trojan Tuesday.
John Blanton, a graduate student in political science, defended the Supreme Court decision. Gary Maloney, a freshman majoring in journalism, opposed the decision and gave arguments against it based on the rights of a fetus.
Blanton said abortion should not be considered a matter over which the government has control.
“Abortion is a personal liberty which should not be yielded either to governmental authority or the beliefs and values of others,” he said.
Blanton said abortion is a
necessary option for women with unwanted pregnancies.
“A substantial number of unwanted pregnancies are among girls who are still children themselves,” he said.
“Their ability to care for an infant is usually hopelessly inadequate.
“Some unwanted pregnancies are the result of rape, where the father is unknown and the mother never had any intention of conception,” Blanton said. “Our prisons are full of unwanted children who were raised amidst bitterness and neglect.”
Blanton said the main question is whether pregnancy warrants a further commitment to give birth.
“Can we deny a woman the right to choose when, or if, she desires to give birth to a child, simply because conception has occured?” he asked. “Does she lose her free will at the point of conception?”
Blanton said the United States is not faced with a grave popula-
tion problem and abortion is not just a question of birth control.
“It is a question ofthe quality of life and the quality of liberty,” he said. “A major problem in our nation is waste, and procreation without commitment, children unwanted by parents, is surely waste of the most tragic kind.
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Talk to focus on sterilization
As part of the continuing observance of Women’s Week, a discussion on “Sterilization at USC” will be held today at 12:30 p.m.
The discussion will be held at the Women’s Resource Center in the YWCA and will focus on the sterlization of minority women at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.
SCOPE forms again, allocations board releases $6,700 from frozen allotment
The Student Committee of Popular Entertainment has formed again, and will continue to bring musical events to the university, said Trevor Paulson, assistant director of Campus Life and Recreation and adviser to SCOPE.
For funds for the new committee, the Campus Activities and Allocations Board had relinquished $3,300 of $10,000 that had been frozen late in January. The former SCOPE had disbanded shortly after their funds had been frozen.
In a unanimous decision Tuesday evening, the board voted to unfreeze the remaining $6,700 for the committee’s use.
The new SCOPE hopes to offer a variety of music including rock, jazz and bluegrass. SCOPE also plans to present local theater troupes and comedy groups this spring, in addition to the musical entertainment, Paulson said.
After the former SCOPE disbanded earlier this semester, some students from that committee expressed interest in forming a new SCOPE. The organization now has fifteen members.
SCOPE will present new groups as well as more established bands at the university this spring. Upcoming acts include Pacific Gas and Electric on Thursday, The Runaways, a
Los Angeles-based female rock group on Thursday, March 18, and Dr. Snootful’s Miracle Cure Medicine Show, a bluegrass and comedy show, at the end of April.
The number and type of concerts will depend upon the funding SCOPE receives from the board, Paulson said. He added that there is the possibility of booking some major acts if the board allocates the money.
“The challenge this semester is to get students to recognize and respect SCOPE, and equate it with both entertainment and quality,” Paulson said.
SCOPE will also survey the students to find out what types of general entertainment they would like to have.