7 dMHy trojan
Volume XCIV, Number 6(	University of Southern California	Tuesday, December 13, 1983
Budget proposal for 1985 holds 11% tuition increase for students
By Catalina Camia
Staff Writer
A tuition hike of 11 percent faces university students next year, according to a tentative proposal by John Curry, executive director of the university budget.
The projected increase — which if approved in June would be the third double-digit tuition jump in the last three years — would send tuition to $292 per unit. The hike is largely due to financial increases in the
faculty fringe benefit program and to the university's obligation to meet the financial need of all students.
Other critical factors cited by Curry include the change in graduate teacher and research assistantship funding, the maintenance of the new cinema complex, and the enhancement of overall quality improvements made in the university.
Projected for next year is a five percent increase in the cost of faculty and staff benefits.
such as medical care and social security withholdings. In the 1983-84 academic year, 22 percent of each faculty member's salary went toward such benefits. The proposed 27 percent will be based upon the $163.2 million in salaries and wages from last year.
Curry explained that it was the cost of health compensation and social security withholdings that was the major cause of the five percent increase.
"Health compensation is a
accused
University Security of harassing black students
By Carmen Chandler
Assistant City Editor
Several black students have claimed that University Security has harassed and embarrassed them by arbitrarily stopping and questioning them.
However, security officials said stopping the students was justified because security had received reports about suspicious people and it had to investigate.
"Anybody on this campus is required to identify themselves and give a reason why they are here," said Steve Ward, University Security chief.
Harouna Niang, president of the African Students Association, said, "We are asking ourselves whether being black is synonymous to being suspicious on this campus."
In the most recent case, which occurred two weeks ago on Nov. 30, Victor-Janvier Bikai-
Nyunai, a graduate student in library sciences from the Central African nation of Cameroon, said he was accosted by a security officer in front of the Norris Dental Science Center. The officer searched him without explaining why or asking for any identification.
"I was walking from Taper Hall to the American Language Institute. When I reached the dental school I went inside to go to the bathroom," Bikai-Nyunai said.
As he left the buiiding he heard someone talking "loudly" behind him.
"When I looked back I saw a security man who asked me to stop," Bikai-Nyunai said. "When he came he began (frisking) me. He did not ask me for identification. I think he was looking for a gun. When he didn't see anything he asked for ^identification. He saw I was a
student and thanked me for my cooperation.
"I was very upset and asked why he embarrassed me like that in front of people. The secu-(Continued on page 8)
Victor-Janvier Bikai-Nyunai
problem all across the economy, not just here," he said.
Last year's amount of $9.27 million of health care expenses, which excludes the cost of dental care, is expected to be $10.5 million for next year.
Social security costs are expected to increase from $12.58 million to approximately $13 million next year.
Another major effect upon next year's tuition is the addition of the incoming freshman class to the full-need packaging program which was adopted two years ago by the administration and commits the university to meet the financial need of all incoming students.
The projected increase for next year is $1.1 million, which is comparable to the $1 million for this year.
Curry said the full-need packaging plan was devised to keep the university in competition with the other major private universities and stressed the program's importance.
"We need to compete for students," he said. "If a class comes under the plan, the university must follow through with it, and see that the financial aid packages of that class are met."
Another factor causing the estimated 11 percent jump in tuition came when the Department of Health and Human Services, the largest donor of research funds to the university, said it will no longer pay for the tuition remission of graduate research and teaching assistants. The university must now absorb that cost, estimated by Curry at $2.7 million.
While this has created con-(Continued on page 7)
New funding for research assistants being sought
By David Jefferson
Staff Writer
An alternative method of providing tuition remission for research assistants is being considered by the administration to compensate for an expected loss of almost $3 million dollars formerly provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"There is a high probability that we will go to the individual schools (which have research assistants working on govern-ment-funded projects) and have them pay a portion of the tuition remission for their RAs," said Cornelius Pings, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs.
The department imposed new regulations prohibiting the university from claiming reimbursement funds for tuition remission given to research assistants working on government-sponsored projects.
Health and Human Services provides one-half of the federal funding the university receives each year for research projects. Hence, the proposed cut would translate into an estimated $2.7 million loss for the university during the 1984-85 school year.
"We have the direction of the federal audit people that we must make the change in funding," Pings said.
William Hromadka, executive director of contracts and grants for the university, said the schools which will be most affected by the proposal are engineering, the natural sciences and the health sciences.
(Continued on page 21)
Professor’s invention allows student to regain use of hand
ATHER AU/DAILY TROJAN
Assistant professor Benhrok Khosnevis works with AmirTorabzaden on his mechanism.
By Bobette Cohn
Staff Writer
A quadriplegic university student can now use his right hand for the first time in four years because of a new invention, created by one of his industrial engineering professors, that will help him write faster and easier.
Behrokh Khoshnevis, an assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering, independently developed a remote control mechanism for about $100 that helps the student hold pencils and perform other manual functions.
The industrial engineering student, Amir Torabzaden, was paralyzed four years ago at the age of 19 as a result of an accident during gymnastics practice. He lost control of the most of the muscles in his legs, fingers, wrists and arms. After the accident, Amir had only minimal use of his left wrist and a few muscles in his arms.
"When Amir started in one of my classes this fall," Khoshnevis said, "I noticed that he had great difficulty writing, despite the fact that he had a prosthetic device to replace his damaged hands. His pliers-like device en-
abled him to bring together his thumb and first two fingers in order to grasp an object such as a pen, but the device depended on the movement of his left wrist."
The old prosthetic device allowed Torabzanden to use only his left hand — a limitation for Torabzanden because he was originally right-handed. That device required some wrist mobility, which was present only in his left wrist.
Torabzanden was also limited by the device, Khoshnevis said, because "his wrist would have to be bent at a given position for him to bring his finger together. He was rigidly limited in maneuverability. And he could not extend his arm fully, because a bent wrist results in a limited reach."
Although he had no experience with bioengineering, Khoshnevis wanted to help Torabzanden by creating a new device. He went to his hobby-size machine shop at home, and spent approximately 100 hours there during nights and weekends to construct the device, using his industrial automation and robotics knowledge. On
Nov. 11, he fitted Torabzanden with a new device.
"I've based my invention on the fact that paralyzed people have many working muscles that they don't use, and those muscles could be employed to activate areas of the body that are paralyzed," Khoshnevis said.
"In this experiment, I used muscles in the top of Amir's arm, and I connected a sensor to the back of his right hand," Khoshnevis said. "By using those muscles, with the aid of an electric motor powered by the battery in his wheelchair, the student can remotely control the fingers in his right hand, which is his writing hand."
Now Torabzanden only needs to move his upper left arm to make his right hand move and grasp, and he can, with practice, improve his writing speed and (Continued on page 21)
Last DT
This is the last issue of the Daily Trojan under the editorship of Marc Igler. Publication will resume Jan. 10 under Rich Ramirez.