Rest assured...Don’t lose sleep because of insomnia
By Merilynne Cohen
Staff Writer
Exams. Boy-girl relations. College adjustments. Family difficulties. All are major causes of insomnia, an ailment that occurs frequently among many students on campus.
College students are especially vulnerable to insomnia — the inability to sleep or stay asleep — because of the many stressful situations students face every day. a Health Center spokesman said.
Insomnia in itself is not a disease but a symptom of some other underlying problem, either physical or emotional.
Physical causes of insomnia can be anything that hurts, such as a headache, and can interfere with sleep. Emotional causes, such as worry or depression, are found to be most common among college students.
Alan Hedman. associate director of Student Health and Counseling Services, cites stress as a frequent cause of insomnia among students.
“Stress can be in the form of tight muscles, causing headaches and other physical problems, making it hard to sleep,” he said. “Stress can a Iso be emotional, where the mind is cluttered with all kinds of thoughts, which are almost always competing. Generally, any changes in our life situations are cause for insomnia.”
Steven Koenigsberg. a senior clinician of Student Health and Counseling Services, said an inability to sleep is something a student can bring on himself by constantly worrying about his failures.
“As a student lies in bed, he begins to think about his mistakes and failures and -begins to blame himself for failing a test or losing a boyfriend or girlfriend,”
Koenigsberg said. “Anything a student is unsatisfied with or has left unfinished causes insomnia. This thinking process is especially common among college students because they are big thinkers and perfectionists.
“Insomnia is a real problem — it is not a neurotic thing, because people have a lot to worry about, which they carry into bed,” he said.
Because the causes of insomnia are so varied,the treatment is different for each individual. Some students just have a need to talk to someone about their problems; others need counseling or prescribed medication to relieve the insomnia.
Traditional methods of inducing sleep are usually the first treatment recommended to students, a Health Center Spokesman said. Drinking warm milk, taking a hot bath and reading a dull book are some of the methods suggested.
The general philosophy of the Health Centeristo avoid prescribing medication as much as possible since it does not solve the real problems behind the insomnia.
In treating students, Hedman uses various breathing and exercise techniques. Hedman refers to one technique as “deep muscle relaxation.” This is done by tightening up muscles, the loosening them, causing the muscles to relax.
Hedman also advises students to think of a pleasant place and meditate on that place for five minutes. This encourages the student to think pleasant thoughts and relax from his pressures. Koenigsberg uses a variety of methods he has found successful in combating insomnia. He en-
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LAS building projects may ease overcrowding
By Bori Benka
Staff Writer
Tentative plans for a major renovation of Founders Hall and the construction of a science building, included in the Letters. Arts and Sciences Complex project, could bring two humanities and natural science departments relief from overcrowding by 1979 or 1980.
If approved, the projects also may upgrade what some students consider two embarass-inglv substandard facilities at the university.
The Founders Hall facelift, a S2.2-million endeavor, would alleviate crowded offices, makeshift classrooms and poorly circulated sections of the building's top three floors.
Though in its early stages, the plan calls for the housing of all classes, offices and laboratory facilities for every division of the humanities departments.
The main floor of Founders Hall would remain much the same, said Gene Gerlitz.the LAS dean's assistant, but would be used for all classes. The top three floors would house departmental offices and laboratory rooms.
Furniture would be upgraded and cubbyhole-sized offices, some that had been in the basement. would be eliminated. Ger-litz said.
In addition, air conditioning and provisions for more comfortable seating in lecture halls are further possibilities of the plan.
"The humanities are grossly underhoused right now,” Gerlitz said. “The idea is to alleviate those cramped quarters so that Founders Hall can be used more efficiently.”
He estimated that the renovation could be finished in two to three years, depending on the
progress of the LAS Complex.
“We have to have a place to put everyone while Founders Hall is being remodeled and there may be extra space if the LAS Complex is completed in time,” he said.
The LAS Complex project includes plans for the $12-million Seeley G. Mudd Building and the $4-million Grace Ford Salvatori Hall, major redevelopments for the university. The complex will be located south of Cromwell Field on the site of Parking Lot K.
Funding for both is nearly complete, according to Don Winston. director of development.
Another plan, which has just reached the drawing board, is for the construction of a science building at the LAS Complex location.
Although there are no plans for funding yet, a spokesman from the office of business affairs speculates private donors or money from the Toward Century
II	project would be sought.
The science facility would augment the Seeley G. Mudd Building, which will contain psychology and chemistry classrooms, offices and laboratories.
Specifically, the new science building would house both wet and dry laboratories for all natural science classes, if plans are approved. The current laboratories are cramped, equipment is outdated and facilities have been neglected for too long, said Paula Thomas, a spokeswoman for business affairs.
However, before final blueprints are drawn up. consultation with the natural sciences division. authorization from the Board of Trustees and plans for funding are needed.
Daily w Trojan
University of Southern California
Volume LXXII, Number 45 Los Angeles, California	Tuesday,	November	22,	1977
fucla
EXT 3 EXITS
SIGN OF THE TIMES — Advocates of truth-in-advertising laws felt daring enough to correct a road-sign on the San Diego Freeway. The pranksters probably saw their act as revenge after Tommy Trojan was
splashed with blue paint twice this year before the annual contest. The Trojans meet the Bruins at 6 p.m. Friday in the Coliseum. DT photo by Doug Gray.
Gays consider filing discrimination suit, to meet with congresswoman
The Gay Student Union will meet with Rep. Yvcnne Braith-waite Burke (D-California), a university trustee, in its efforts to change USC’s antidiscrimination policy, said Rodney Hoffman, a member of the group heading the effort.
Legal action is also being discussed and a meeting is
Student killed in automobile accident
One student was killed and another seriously injured in an automobile collision Friday night.
Cindy Leone, 21, a senior in journalism, died at 12:02 a.m. Saturday. William Barry, a sophomore in business, suffered from a skull laceration and was released from the hospital Monday.
Barn.- and Leone were traveling east on Jefferson Boulevard when Barry apparently started to turn lefl onto Hoover Street, colliding with a car traveling in the opposite direction.
The two students were taken to California Hospital, where Leone died before doctors could operate for multiple internal injuries, according to Sgt. Ken Kinkade of the Accident Investigation Follow-Up Unit of the
South Bureau of the Los Angeles Police Department.
The car driven by Barry was a 1969 Volkswagen. The other car, driven by Roderick Cooper of
Y
CINDY LEONE
Los Angeles with four passengers, was a 1964 Buick Electra. No one in the Buick was injured.
Cooper said he saw the Volkswagen in the lefl-tum lane across from him apparently come to a stop, but then it turned left in front of him.
Leone was the editor of the
1977	El Rodeo and was secretary of the Daily Trojan at the time of her death. She was active as a leaderofthe Tuesday Night Row Bible Study Group and served as a staff member of the Lake Avenue Congregational Church in Pasadena.
Clarence Anderson, university editor and the director of student publications, said that as editor of El Rodeo Leone brought a level of profes-
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scheduled with American Civil Liberties Union attorneys in Los Angeles to contemplate a lawsuit against the university, he said.
The group has worked for several years to change the university’s anti-discrimination pol icy to include the rights of gay individuals and has been refused each time, Hoffman said.
“No (lawsuit) has been filed as yet,” he said, “but a lawyer from the ACLU of Southern California is going over our information.”
"We hope to secure their backing in this matter,” Hoffman said.
The meeting with Burke is expected as soon as Congress adjourns.
Burke is a cosponsor of the national Gay Right Bill, a proposed law now pending in Congress.
DT takes vacation
This will be the final issue of the Daily Trojan to be published this week as the staff joins innumerable other purveyors of the turkey scene in celebrating Thanksgiving. Publication will resnme Tuesday, Nov. 29.
"We’ve been shot down every time we’ve brought this proposal up,” Hoffman said.
He also said the negative reaction to the proposals before university groups came “undervery suspicious circumstances.”
The activities of the Affirmative Action and Personnel Policies Commission, under the President’s Advisory Council, have sometimes been “strange,” Hoffman said.
“Sometimes we get a good reaction from some of the members, but when it came to voting, they said no,” he said.
The proposal was last discussed by the commission in May after an hour-long presentation earlier in the year by Donald Knutson, a law professor and Gay Student Union adviser, who is now on leave from the university.
“He gave an hour presentation and no vote was taken. At another meeting, they voted the proposal down without notifying us,” Hoffman said.
Knutson is currently working in San Francisco as chairman of the Pride Legal Defense Fund, a national organization designed for the education of people and protection of gay rights.