trojan
Volume XCIII, Number 34	University of Southern California	Wednesday, March 2, 1983
New tuition installment plan for fall
Tornado narrowly misses campus
By Gary Karr
Managing Editor The university escaped what could have been major damage Tuesday when a tornado that battered buildings and overturned cars in dow'ntow'n Los Angeles skirted campus by a few blocks.
The tornado originated
southeast of the campus, near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and proceeded north, also just missing the university central receiving office near 37th Street and Grand Avenue east of the Harbor Freeway.
Although the tornado narrowly missed the university, it tore a large portion of the roof
off the Los Angeles Convention Center on Figueroa Street, causing $3-million damage to the structure 11/2 miles north of campus.
The National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for Southern California for Tuesday morning and afternoon, the Associated Press reported.
"We were very lucky the tornado did not hit campus," said Lt. Dwight Sf r'ders of University Security. Sanders said that some people just east of the central receiving area were injured and that cars wrere being picked up by the tornado and dropped on top of other cars.
Even without the specter of a tornado hitting the campus, the university's phvsical plant and security departments were kept busy Tuesday by the wet w'eather.
Because many buildings on campus have problems when it rains, the physical plant brings in approximately 30 extra workers on stormv days, increasing the staff to about 150, said Harrv Kyne, director of physical plant.
The basement of Bridge Hall, where the entrepreneur program of the business school is located, w'as flooded with water. Physical plant employees vacuumed out water from the conference room in the basement.
The copv center, located in the basement of the Student Activities Center, and the Grill, in the basement of the Student Union building, often have problems w'ith w'ater that rolls down the stairs south of the grill, between the Student Union and the SAC.
The area was sandbagged to prevent a heavy water flow, though some water was still able to seep in the copv center.
"We haven't had too much flood trouble on the campus," Kvne said. He added that work w'as done a few years ago on Jefferson Boulevard that prevents water from running straight into the campus.
By Annette Haddad
Assistant Citv Editor
In an effort to reduce the number of unsettled fee bills each semester, the university will implement a plan next fall that will help students finance tuition costs.
The new tuition financing option, called the Trojan Installment Plan, will have a dramatic effect on the number of unpaid fee bills, said Jimi Bingham, director of student financial operations. Currently, there are 3,500 students w’ho have yet to pav their fee bills this semester.
"We are somewhat behind the times," Bingham said. "We have never offered an installment plan. This gives parents the chance to finance tuition in their monthly budget."
The TIP plan, as it is called by university' officials, will give students and their parents the option to pav fee bills (tuition, housing and food) in 11 monthly installments.
Rick Silverman, assistant to the executive director of the office of financial services, said the TIP loan will not affect a student's eligibility for financial aid. He added that 65 percent of university students receive some form of aid.
When a student is considering financial aid as a way to pav college fees, the university w'ill figure a financial-aid package for him. This package determines the amount of state and university' grants or scholarships the student is eligible for and anv federal or state loans the student may apply for. The package also figures the amount of cash contribution that the family must make to the student's fees.
The student or his parents may applv for a TIP loan to pay the amount of the family contribution.
The university will work in conjunction with Bank of America on this plan. The TIP loan application will be sent to the university and once it is approved, all payments will be made directly to the bank.
The interest rate on a TIP loan w'ill be one point above that of Bank of America's prime lending rate at the time of signing the loan contract.
The TIP loan will be made in two disbursements, one for the fall semester and one for the spring semester. If the student should drop out for a semester, the borrower w'ill have to pav interest only on the amount that was disbursed.
Similar to financial aid, a borrower must reapply for the TIP every vear, and there is a S75 application fee.
Silverman said the university will be more lenient than an acccredited money-lending institution in approving loans. However, he added that the borrower must have good credit.
Silverman said that all incoming freshmen and new students will be sent information about the TIP program in the mail.
Another option for students in paying their fee bills is a pre-(Continued on page 11)
Reagan's policies under fire by three campus speakers
By Douglas Lytle
Staff Writer
The Reagan Administration's Central American policy came under attack Tuesday by three campus speakers who have recently returned from fact-finding missions in w'ar-torn Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.
"I know with my senses and with mv heart what is really going on in Nicaragua, and that the United States is slipping into another Vietnam," said Drew Katzman, an author-actor who returned from Nicaragua in November.
Speaking in Annenberg auditorium at a sparsely attended "Forum on Central America," Katzman said that the American people are not sufficiently informed about the ongoing violence and covert CIA actions in Nicaragua.
Katzman, w'ho was on what he called a "peace vigil" in Nicaragua, said that the United States has responded in an imperialistic and counterrevolutionary fashion to the 1979 overthrow-of the oppressive Somoza regime.
Katzman was one of three speakers who have all visited Central America and are well-acquainted with current events in the area.
Katzman said that because of the Reagan Administration's anti-Sandinista policies, combined with w'hat he sees as the American press' loss of interest in events taking place in Central America, the United States is once again going to be caught in a trap.
"My goal is to make people aware about what our government is doing in response to a nation's
desire for self-determination and self-rule," Katzman said.
Katzman echoed what has now been acknowledged by the Reagan Administration that the CIA has been involved in training and supplying anti-Sandinista troops composed of rebels and ex-Somoza guardsmen on the border between Honduras and Nicaragua. The rebel troops, he said, have been crossing the border to carry out missions of death and destruction against the villagers in Nicaragua.
Katzman visited Nicaragua during joint U.S.-Honduras military maneuvers and encountered "bodies that were freshly killed,'' discarded American military supplies and "villages that had been destroyed."
Amon Hadar, a teacher at Dominican College in San Rafael and an author of a book about El Salvador and the United States, recently returned from El Salvador w'ith eight others as part of a fact-finding mission designed to examine the extent of human rights violations and to view the educational system in the country.
Hadar said that the current government does not allow' much educational freedom and that teachers and students considered to be "political subversives," have been "tortured, murdered and beaten."
"Education in El Salvador is very bad," he said. "There are no large facilities, no books and few teachers."
Hadar said that only 45 percent of the elementary schools are in operation and that the main
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