Seventy-Fifth Year of Publication
trojan
Volume CM, Number 26
University of Southern California
1912 — 1986
Tuesday, October 7, 1986
Ethnic Studies undergoes reorganization, cutbacks
Only 3 courses offered this year
By Hortensia M. Lopez and Kirsten D. Levingston
Staff Writers
The Ethnic Studies Program is offering only three classes this semester, and a special committee is being formed to re-evaluate the program.
However, the program director, Diego Vigil, said a task-force committee that he headed in 1982, already made recommendations for altering the program, and he'd like to see those implemented.
David Weisen, dean of humanities in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences in 1982, appointed the task force "to make recommendations on how to restructure and strengthen the Ethnic Studies Program,” Vigil wrote in a memo attached to the final report.
"The task force suggests that a new approach be pursued: namely, allocating university resources to departments to develop curriculum and recruit faculty, thereby improving our ability to meet the academic and professional interests of our students, ethnic and non-ethnic alike," the report said.
Instead of listing all of its courses under ethnic studies, the task force recommended that some courses be taught by faculty in other departments and cross-listed under ethnic studies, as in done in programs such as the Program for the Study of Women and Men in Society.
"The program should be more comparative and less departmentalized," said Judith Stiehm, vice provost.
Although departments such as history, journalism and anthropology have developed courses in-ethnic studies. Vigil said many of the task force recommendations "didn't catch on," and he would like to see them implemented.
"The results were presented to the dean of humanities, and other people OK'd it but nothing substantial resulted. There were a few courses: Minorities In the Media, and Minority Mental Health. . . . No other courses were initiated after the task force report was made public," Vigil said.
"The Ethnic Studies Program of the last decade, as presently constituted, has not succeeded," the task force concluded in its report.
(Continued on page 8)
Reagan nominates alumnus as first black ambassador to South Africa
By Roseanne Tellez
City Editor
President Reagan has nominated university graduate Edward Perkins to be the new ambassador to South Africa.
If Perkins is confirmed by Congress, he will be the first black ambassabor to that country. He would replace current ambassador Herman Nickel.
The nomination of Perkins, which had been expected for more than one month, was seen by> many as an attempt to win congressional support for the administration's policy in South Africa.
However, when Reagan made the announcement on Sept. 30, the House had already voted to override his veto of sanctions against South Africa. The senate has since overridden the veto as well, and the sanctions are now law.
Nickel, in his four and a half years as ambassador to South Africa, has reported little progress in the search for peaceful change.
President Reagan initially sought to nominate a North Carolina businessman, Robert Brown,
for the position as ambassador. However, when Brown's business dealings were questioned by Congress, he declined the nomination.
Next Terence Tod man, the ambassador to Denmark was considered, but that also fell through.
Perkins, 58, has been ambassador to the Republic of Liberia since 1985.
He received his master's degree from the university's School of Public Administration in 1972 and in 1979 received his doctoral degree from the university's Washington Public Affairs Center. Perkins also attended the University of Maryland where he earned a baccalaureate degree in 1967.
His diplomatic career has included a position as management analyst officer for the office of the deputy undersecretary of state for management in Washington from 1975 to 1978. The previous year he was a post-management worker for the State Department's Bureau of Near East and South Asian Affairs.
From 1967 to 1971 Perkins worked for the Agency for International Development in Thailand.
Study finds that limited resources hinder growth of struggling academic programs
By Gary Sutton
Staff Writer
Most of the university's academic programs are relatively strong, and many have received
Feature.
Business student opens yogurt shop as an alternative to Westwood prices
By Jacqueline Ching
Staff Writer
As a junior in the School of Business who intends to enter the Entrepreneur Program, Michael Alevizon already has a good head start. He is the sole proprietor of Cool Places a yogurt place located at 30th and Figueroa.
"First year I was here, I kept going to Westwood to get yogurt, so I decided to open one here," Alevizon said.
Evidently, many of his customers feel the same way. But that's not the only lure to Cool Places. Said one regular customer, "There's a big variety of toppings. Their flavors aren't plain flavors. They're special, like Hawaiian Delight." Indeed, there are no fewer than 21 toppings and exotic flavors such as mandarin orange, strawberry cheesecake and cafe Milano.
Not only is it more convenient, but "we're cheaper than Westwood. We're more considerate on the toppings and the sizes and we're cheaper," said Kelly Aquino, a junior majoring in broadcast journalism.
Store manager Kim Kirby is a senior majoring in electrical engineering. She said she personally went to Westwood to "check out the prices. We got ideas from other people, but we didn't copy them."
The atmosphere is friendly
largely because the staff consists of Alevizon's friends. "It's fun (working here) because a lot of students come here, so there are a lot of familiar faces," Aquino said.
For Alevizon, things can get pretty hectic juggling between his work and school. "During the first two to three weeks, I spent 60 hours a week here," he said. Now he spends every morning there, in addition to most afternoons.
Alevizon first thought of starting a yogurt business in high school when he and a friend began planning their
future enterprise. But how does one go about starting one's own yogurt establishment? For a start, Alevizon found a contractor who had previously worked on the construction of similar stores, therefore he knew what needed to be installed. He also attended a big convention in Anaheim where "anybody who had anything to do with ice cream had a booth."
Alevizon and friends picked the name 'Cool Places' out of 25 to 30 names.
"Mike deserves the best. We all want him to succeed," Aquino said.
...........urn
FROZEN YOGUR
MIA HANUSEK / DAILY TROJAN
Cool Places may be the cool place to hang out for those seeking a little cool treat.
national and international recognition, but a lack of money and facilities is preventing some programs from improving, according to the university's reaccreditation self-study report.
Perhaps the greatest contrast between growth and stagnation is exemplified by the law and medicine schools.
The Law Center may be in an excellent position to meet its two greatest needs, which are raising the salaries of its faculty to compete with other top law schools and expanding its facilities to accommodate clinical teaching, library expansion and faculty growth.
An ever-increasing endowment, which now stands at $14.4 million, and the plan to add 25,000 square feet to the Musick Law Building at a cost of $5 million will allow the school to achieve its objectives, the report says.
Meanwhile, the School of Medicine has improved little in recent years in comparison with other medical schools. The report says the primary reason is a lack of space.
There are 122 medical schools in the United States. The university's is better than most, but it is not compared to the best in the country.
"We're not normally ranked in the top 20, but we're at the doorstep," said John Crowe, director of development in the School of Medicine.
But Crowe said he's not optimistic about the school's chances of improving its national ranking in the near future. The highest-ranking medical schools are expected to continue improving, thus making it difficult for the university's to catch up.
According to the report, the greatest inconsistency in quality is within the humanities division of the College of Letters,
Arts and Sciences. The departments of linguistics, philosophy, English, and classics are all considered potential top-10 programs.
However, the departments of Spanish and Portuguese, French and Italian, German, East Asian languages and cultures, and comparative literature are all cited by the university as being relatively poor.
The report says the goal is to continue improving the better programs in an effort to place them among the nation's top 10 before working on improving the poorer programs.
Aside from the need to expand facilities and find more resources for revenue, little improvement is needed for the university's professional schools, the report says.
The Schools of Architiecture, Business Administration, Cinema-Television, Engineering, Music and Pharmacy are all ranked in the top 10 nationally.
Although these programs are considered among the best, university administration officials said there is room for improvement.
Compared with the professional schools, the division of social sciences and communications within LAS, the core of the liberal-arts program, has major problems.
According to the study, there is a shortage of space for those programs and the ratio of students to faculty is much too high.
The reaccreditation self-study, entitled Designs for Leadership, was released nearly two weeks ago. Although there is a shortage of reports, copies may be obtained on a loan basis at the Student Senate and all major university libraries.
This is one in a series of articles reporting the findings of the university's reaccreditation self-study.