trojan
Volume XCII, Number 25	University of Southern California	Monday, October 11, 1982
Coroner says student was murdered
LAPD reports no suspects
By Marc Igler
Assistant City Editor
The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office said Friday that the 24-year-old female student whose body was found four weeks ago in her off-campus apartment, was murdered.
The official cause of death has been listed by the coroner’s office as “asphyxiation at the hands of another.”
The coroner’s report said that “superficial injuries of the neck” and the ‘‘circumstances under which her body was found” indicated that the homicide was caused by asphyxiation. Authorities would not elaborate on the cause of death nor on the circumstances that surrounded it.
The body of Laurie Crawford, who was working on her doctorate in petroleum engineering, was found Sept.
13 in the Regal Rita apartment complex at 803 W. 30th St.
According to laboratory tests, there was no evidence of poisons or narcotic substances found in Crawford’s body nor was there any evidence of sexual assault, said Bill Gold, a spokesman for the coroner’s office.
Lt. Duane Gansemer of the Los Angeles Police Department said that he suspected all along that the death was a murder.
"We had a lot of questions from the beginning, and we still have a lot,” Gansemer said. ‘‘But we do not have any suspects.”
The LAPD launched an investigation into the death when the body was discovered. Two detectives have been assigned to the case, and though there are no suspects, the department has
several leads, Gansemer said.
Crawford, who had been dead for at least three days before University Security officers and the apartment manager found the body, had been living in Los Angeles for about one month.
She came to Southern California from Houston, Texas, where she had worked for Texaco Inc. It was going to be her first year at the university after earning a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering from the University of California. Berkeley.
The coroner had trouble determining the cause of death because “much of the physical evidence was hard to pin down” since the body had been decomposing for three days, Gold said.
“Things take quite a while, especially when a body is in that condition," Gold said.
Advisory Council members announced
President James Zumberge announced last week the appointments to the newly established University Advisory Council, a committee of 18 designed to advise the president on “major items of university business.”
The UAC was created in order to streamline the decision-making process of the administration and will be “a body in which any matter of great importance to the university may be discussed,” said George Abdo. executive secretary to the president.
The UAC will comprise senior administrators, four deans, faculty members, the faculty senate president, the chairman of the staff assembly and the Student Senate president.
Many of the council's members are not sure of its intended functions. They await more specific information from Zumberge, which may come at the first council meeting Tuesday.
“The primary value (of the UAC) is to advise the president on matters which extend beyond the interests of any particular constituency group," said James Appleton, vice president of development and a member of the UAC.
A memo from the president says that the council will “provide a way of ensuring that we have fully marshalled the wisdom from the university as a whole before specific actions are taken."
Abdo said,“As occasion permits, due to the subject matter being discussed, others will be asked to sit with the committee."
Additionally, about 14 governance committees have been established in the wake of the dissolution of the President’s Advisory Council in June. These comtnittees will report to the office of the president on more specific issues. Among them are the university admissions committee, the student affairs committee,
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FRINGE BENEFIT EXPECTED TO ATTRACT TOP PROFESSORS
University begins loan plan to finance faculty housing
By Carmen Chandler
Staff Writer
To draw new faculty members and to provide an incentive for those already teaching, the university has begun a new faculty housing assistance plan in the form of shared appreciation loans.
The loans, made possible by the university, will help faculty members finance the purchase of a home in the greater Los Angeles area.
“It was set up to assist the university in attracting prominent faculty members in order to help them out as sort of a fringe benefit,” said Catherine Maddaford, treasury specialist in the treasurer’s office. “It enables younger faculty members to come from out-of-state who couldn’t afford to live in the Los Angeles area.”
Since the plan’s establishment, the university has loaned approximately $700,000 to new and returning faculty members. Maddaford said.
“It just started in April, and between June and August we made 10 to 15 loans." Most of the loans, she said, have been between $40,000 and $70,000.
“The faculty member has to have 10 percent of his own money and acquire 50 percent financing and we provide up to 40 percent at six-and-a-half annual interest,” said Jon Strauss, senior vice president of administration.
If the faculty member meets certain qualifications regarding need and tenure status, his application will be sent to the treasurer's office where it will be evaluated. If the application is accepted, it will go to Strauss, who makes the final decision.
In exchange for a low-interest rate, the university gets a
share of the net appreciation at the end of the term. Maddaford
said.
Strauss clarified the program. “If the (value of the) house does not appreciate, the faculty member does not owe us more except the paying back of the loan, but if it does appreciate, we share in the appreciation and the share becomes the so-called contingent
interest. We are protecting the university’s assets by charging a contingent rate,” he said.
The money for the plan comes from a surplus of funds generated during the years the university enjoyed an especially high enrollment, Strauss said. “It’s the money the (board of) trustees set aside as endowment. Instead of investing it in stock, we are investing
it in faculty mortgages.
“We have authorized as much as $1 million (to the program) from the funds functioning as endowment," Strauss said.
Maddaford continued, “We’re trying to meet the needs of these people (new faculty members), to give them better opportunities than banks would. At six-and-a-half per-
cent (interest), the payment is quite low. After the 10 years (the period of the loan), they must settle the loan, by either selling their house or by refinancing the loan."
“It’s (the program) been very popular,” Maddaford said. “Depending on the response, we may go to the board (of trustees) for an extension. The (Continued on page 2)
FOOD INSPECTOR — A neighborhood canine wanders through the university searching for his daily meal. Here, he checks the quality of a cafeteria lunch. He finds out what many students already believe — the
food sometimes is best left behind on some lawn. Obviously, this dog has been looking often and testing rarely. The dog refused to comment on his plight
Staff photo by Larry Gund