Seventy-Fifth Year of Publication
dkly trojan
Volume CM, Number 49
University of Southern California
1912 — 1986
Monday, November 10, 1986
Feature.
Alumni House: symbol of university tradition
Two senate seats to be filled
Candidate search ends; elections to be held this week
MICHELE KARAS
The Alumni House, a testament to the history of the university, now houses the General Alumni Association but once held classrooms.
By Jennifer Lewis
Staff Writer
Ivy League colleges may boast of their historical roots, but the university's own Widnev Alumni House, the first building on campus, dates back to Oct. 6, 1880, when 53 students attended their first day of classes in what was then a simple two-story wood structure.
Todav, the building, renovated and restored, is decorated in rich hues of wedgwood blue and veridian green and filled with mahog-
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By Denise Hendricks
Staff Writer
Elections will be held this Thursday and Friday to fill two vacant graduate seats in the Student Senate.
The seats, both for the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, were vacated by Ahmad Ghaith Al-Sowaldi and Mike Aronson.
Aronson, who was a graduate senator last spring, failed to return to the university this fall. Tlie second seat, belonging to Al-Sowaldi, was left vacant when Al-Sowaldi resigned over a week ago.
Senators had encouraged Al-Sowaldi to resign because he had missed more meetings than is permitted by the senate's constitution.
The senate's constitution also says that if “more than 10 weeks (are) remaining in the term of office, an election shall be held within three weeks to fill the vacancy."
However, the elections could not be held within three weeks because "we couldn't find anyone to run," said Wally Bobkiewicz, president of the senate. The senate would have been forced to appoint the senators if interested students had not surfaced, he said.
Tom Becktold, chairman of senate elections, said that some interested candidates finally came in after they had read an article in the Daily Trojan. He also said that senators tried their best to solicit people they thought might be interested.
Now there are three candidates for the two senate positions.
These candidates are Fraser Shilling, an LAS graduate student; Silvia Hervog, a graduate student in musicology; and Daniel Salzer, a graduate student in clinical psychology.
The candidates will be allowed to campaign for the elections through Wednesday.
Bobkiewicz said despite campaign efforts, only 25 votes were cast during last year's election.
Al-Sowaldi received 22 votes and Aronson 9 to win in that election.
Bobkiewicz said that one reason for the low voter turnout is that LAS doesn't have just one graduate department. For example, he said, the School of Business concentrates on a single department. But in LAS, graduates are studying a variety of subjects and therefore have different needs and concerns, which leads to a lack of unity within the school, he said.
The elections committee is already working on next year's election procedure, leaving it with little manpower to promote the current graduate senator elections, Becktold said.
Therefore, they are relying on the candidates to promote the elections by word of mouth. The committee will contact graduate professors and ask them to tell their students about them, he said.
The elections will be held in front of Tommy Trojan from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Thursday and Friday.
Election results will be announced on Friday at 4 p.m., and the new senators will be seated on Nov.
19.
Teaching assistants to gain recognition in annual honors convocation in March
By Terry Allen
Staff Writer
When this year's annual honors convocation takes place in March, the university will recognize some of its best and brightest students, and, for the first time, its most outstanding teaching assistant.
The plan has been proposed by Erica Crystal, the chairwoman of the Student Senate's academic affairs research / action unit.
Unlike in the past, when the administration alone selected students and faculty members to be honored, students will vote directly this year for faculty they consider to be most effective in doing their jobs.
Also, a number of other categories for academic excellence — including scholar athletes, fraternities and sororities with the highest cumulative grade point averages, and other service organizations whose members have found time to be outstand-
ing students -— will be recognized at the ceremony.
Crystal said it is hoped that public recognition of superior TAs will help to encourage TAs that have been less effective to do a better job.
"There have been a lot of complaints by students who have had problems with TAs," she said. "By having students vote on the outstanding TA, we hope to discourage the bad ones and encourage the good ones."
Crystal said an expanded convocation would serve both to encourage students' pursuit of academic excellence and to enhance the university's reputation as a serious academic institution. While students know the quality of education they receive from the university, she said, the outside community does not regard the school's academic integrity with the same degree of respect.
"We have traditionally had a poor reputation for our academics," she said. "People that attend USC
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Canned goods needed for ‘Challenge UCLA ’
Two groups sponsor food drive
By Lauren Kam
Staff Writer
For the first time, the Student Senate is coordinating its annual "Challenge UCLA" food drive with the Campus Religion Organization Coordinating Council.
The purpose of the food drive is to collect as many canned foods as possible for distribution this Thanksgiving. Both organizations said they would like to make this drive an all-university effort.
"We really hope students will participate," said Elizabeth Larco, chairwoman of the senate's environmental and external affairs research / action unit.
University departments are also being asked to participate. "So far we've had a good response, and everyone's been really helpful," said Michael Sayegh, president of the Campus Religion Organiza tfon.
The canned goods will be distributed to churches, social service agencies and missions in the surrounding area. Some of the food will be distributed to the Joseph James Community Outreach
Program and the Sunshine Mission Home, Larco said.
"We're going to start slow in collections because publicity has come out a little late. However, I believe we'll pick up momentum starting next week," Larco said.
"We'll be collecting cans before the Cal game. Locations for that will be either Tommy Trojan or the student entrance of the coliseum," added Larco. Both the senate and the Campus Religion Organization Coordinating' Council have been planning the drive for three weeks, Sayegh said. "We just want to make this a really good Thanksgiving," he said.
The food drive will run through Nov. 21 with drop-off locations at the Student Senate Office, Student Activities Office, dormitory front desks, parking structures, and the Gamma Phi Beta Sorority House.
Any canned foods can be donated, however preferred foods includes vegetables, fruits, juice, soups and meat.
The winner of the Food Drive Challenge, be-
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Ex-justice Burger courts press
Former enemy of media now asks for coverage
By Aaron Van Curen
Editor
WASHINGTON — Warren Burger chastised, avoided, and some say even assaulted news reporters while chief justice of the Supreme Court for 17 years. But now he's courting the press.
Burger has left the court and now heads the committee for the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution.
While on the bench. Burger had no use for the media. Now he is asking it to put out a message.
His explanation to the press: "I don't mind using you; I just don't want you to use me."
His message to the nation: The Constitution is as much a valuable and versatile document today as it was when it was written nearly 200 years ago.
Burger presented this appeal for newspaper space to over 1,000 college media students and advisers at the Associated Collegiate Press / College Media Advisers convention last weekend in Washington D.C.
Three members of the Daily Trojan staff attended the conference.
Burger spoke Friday afternoon to a room packed with students, many of whom had studied Burger's dislike of the press and apparent hatred of television news, and the effect that his opinion has had in denying television access to federal courtrooms.
As the burly 79-year-old spoke, many of the college journalists no doubt thought back to stories told in their journalism history classes of a television cameraman who said Burger struck him when he did not remove himself, or his camera, from Burger's face.
Cameras are not allowed on federal courthouse property, a policy that may be traced to Burger.
And even though he was asking for their help, Burger's feelings towards journalists appeared unchanged.
Before the one-time high school newspaper editor spoke, about
10	student journalists lined up at a microphone in the center of the room to ask questions of the former justice.
But their 30-minute standing vigil went unrewarded.
Burger ended his speech, nodded in an acknowledgement of the applause and left the hall, answering no questions and leaving the students grumbling into the microphone.
Burger spoke primarily of the difficulty the Constitution's founders had in bringing together 13 bull-minded and independent states into one:
"To get (the) Constitution, states had to surrender some of their rights to the state that was going to be created. The states didn't want to do that."
He told of Robert E. Lee and other Americans who throughout history put loyalty to their state ahead of loyalty to the United
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